SIX  CENTURIES  OF  PAINTING 


w 


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VITTORE    PISANO 

(called  pisanello) 
ST  ANTHONY  AND  ST  GEORGE 

National  Gallery,  London 


SIX  CENTURIES  OF 
PAINTING 


BY 


RANDALL    DAVIES 


NEW    YORK 

DODGE  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

214-220  EAST   23RD  STREET 


Add'l 
GIFT 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 
by  Turnbull  &  Spears,  Edinburgh 


CONTENTS 


A/Dro 

D3 


TUSCAN  SCHOOLS— 

I.  Giovanni  Cimabue  . 
II.  Giotto  di  Bondone 

III.  The  Earlier  Quattrocentists 

IV.  The  Later  Quattrocentists 
V.  Leonardo  da  Vinci 

VI.  Michelangelo  Buonarroti 
VII.  Raffaello  di  Santi 


VENETIAN  SCHOOLS— 

I.  The  Vivarini  and  Bellini 
II.  Tiziano  Vecellio    . 
III.  Paolo  Veronese  and  II  Tintoretto 

SPANISH  SCHOOL  .... 

FLEMISH  SCHOOI — 

I.  Hubert  and  Jan  van  Eyck 
II.  Peter  Paul  Rubens 
III.  The  Pupils  of  Rubens 

DUTCH  SCHOOL— 
I.  Frans  Hals 
II.  Rembrandt  van  Ryn 

III.  Painters  of  Genre 

IV.  Painters  of  Animals 
V.  Painters  of  Landscape 

GERMAN  SCHOOLS 


PACE 

I 

IO 

18 
26 

33 

40 

47 


59 

78 

99 
109 


121 

*43 

i57 

165 
171 

183 
191 
202 

2ri 


M899371 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

FRENCH  SCHOOL— 

I.  The  Seventeenth  Century 
II.  The  Eighteenth  Century 

THE  ENGLISH  SCHOOL— 

I.  The  Early  Portrait  Painters 
II.  William  Hogarth  ..... 

III.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  and  Thomas  Gainsborough 

IV.  The  Close  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  . 

THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY— 
I.  The  Spirit  of  Revolt 
II.  Eugene  Delacroix 

III.    RUSKIN  AGAINST  THE  PHILISTINES      . 

IV.  Manet  and  Whistler  against  the  World 
V.  The  Royal  Academy 


PAfJE 
225 

235 


251 
258 
267 
295 


305 
309 
3i3 
324 
329 


INDEX 


335 


VI 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

ViTTORE  Pisano  (called  PlSANELLO) — St  Anthony 

and  St  George       ....       Frontispiece 
National  Gallery,  London 

PLATE  FACING  PAGE 

I.  FlLIPPO  LlPPI — The  Annunciation    .  .  .22 

National  Gallery,  London 

11.  Sandro  Botticelli  (?) — The  Virgin  and  Child      .        26 

National  Gallery,  London 

in.  Sandro  Botticelli — Portrait  of  a  Young  Man      .        28 

National  Gallery,  London 

iv.  Sandro  Botticelli — The  Nativity  .  .        32 

National  Gallery,  London 

v.  Leonardo  da  Vinci— The  Virgin  of  the  Rocks     .        36 

National  Gallery,  London 

VI.  PiETRO  Perugino — Central  Portion  of  Altar-Piece  50 

National  Gallery,  London 

vii.  Raphael — The  Ansidei  Madonna     .  .  .         52 

National  Gallery,  London 

viii.  Raphael — La  Belle  Jardiniere  .  .  .52 

Louvre,  Paris 

IX.  Raphael — Portrait  of  Baldassare  Castiglione  .         56 

Louvre,  Paris 

X.  CORREGGIO — Mercury,  Cupid,  and  Venus      .  .         58 

National  Gallery,  London 

xi.  Andrea  Mantegna — The  Madonna  della  Vittoria .        68 

Louvre,  Paris 

vii 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

,'IATE  FACING  PAGE 

xii.  Giovanni  Bellini — The  Doge  Loredano    .  .        72 

National  Gallery,  London 

XIII.  GlORGIONE— Venetian  Pastoral  .  .  .78 

Louvre,  Paris 

XIV.  TITIAN — Portrait  said  to  be  of  Ariosto  .  .         84 

National  Gallery,  London 

xv.  Titian— The  Holy  Family     .  .  .  .86 

National  Gallery,  London 

XVI.  Titian— The  Entombment     ....        88 

Louvre,  Paris 

xvii.  Tintoretto — St  George  and  the  Dragon     .  .       102 

National  Gallery,  London 
XVIII.  VELAZQUEZ — The  Infante  Philip  Prosper       .  .       112 

Imperial  Gallery,  Vienna 

xix.  Velazquez — The  Rokeby  Venus      .  .  .118 

National  Gallery,  London 

XX.  MURILLO— A  Boy  Drinking   .  .  .  .120 

National  Gallery,  London 

xxi.  Jan  van  Eyck — Jan  Arnolfini  and  His  Wife  .       128 

National  Gallery,  London 

xxil.  Jan  VAN  EYCK — Portrait  of  the  Painter's  Wife  .       132 

Town  Gallery,  Bruges 

XXIII.  Jan  MABUSE — Portrait  of  Jean  Carondelet    .  .136 

Louvre,  Paris 

xxiv.  Sir  Peter  Paul  Rubens— Portrait  of  Helene  Four- 
ment,  the  Artist's  Second  Wife,  and  two  of  Her 
Children      .  .  .  .  .  .150 

Louvre,  Paris 

XXV.  FRANS  HALS — Portrait  of  a  Lady       .  .  .168 

Louvre,  Paris 

viii 


List  of  Illustrations 

PLATE  FACING  PAGE 

XXVI.  REMBRANDT — Portrait  of  Hendrickje  Stoffels  .       176 

Louvre,  Paris 

xxvii.  Rembrandt — Portrait  of  an  Old  Lady  .  .182 

National  Gallery,  London 

XXVIII.  TERBORCH — The  Concert        .  .  .  .186 

Louvre,  Paris 

xxix.  Gabriel  Metsu — The  Music  Lesson  .  .       188 

National  Gallery,  London 

xxx.  Pieter  de  Hooch — Interior  of  a  Dutch  House         .       190 

National  Gallery,  London 

xxxi.  Jan  Vermeer — The  Lace  Maker      .  .  .       192 

Louvre,  Paris 

xxxii.  "  The  Master  of  St  Bartholomew  " — Two  Saints      212 

National  Gallery,  London 

XXXIII.  HANS  HOLBEIN — Portrait  of  Christina,  Duchess  of 

Milan  ......       224 

National  Gallery,  London 

xxxiv.  Antoine  Watteau — LTndifferent  .  .  .       236 

Louvre,  Paris 

xxxv.  Jean-Baptiste  Greuze— The  Broken  Pitcher         .       244 

Louvre,  Paris 

xxxvi.  Jean  Honore  Fragonard— L'Etude  .  .      248 

Louvre,  Paris 

xxxvii.  Hans  Holbein — Anne  of  Cleves       .  .  .      256 

Louvre,  Paris 

xxxviii.  William  Hogarth — The  Shrimp  Girl        .  .      260 

National  Gallery,  London 

xxxix.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds — Lady  Cockburn  and  Her 

Children     ......       274 

National  Gallery,  London 

ix 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

I'l.ATK  FACING)  PAGE 

xl.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds — The  Age  of  Innocence     .      284 

National  Gallery,  London 

xli.  Thomas  Gainsborough — The  Market  Cart  .      290 

National  Gallery,  London 

XLII.  GEORGE  Romney — The  Parson's  Daughter  .       298 

National  Gallery,  London 

XLIII.  GEORGE  Romney — Mrs  Robinson — "Perdita"  .       300 

Hertford  House,  London 

xliv.  Jacques  Louis  David — Portrait  of  Mme.  R6camier       306 

Louvre,  Paris 

xlv.  Eugene  Delacroix — Dante  and  Virgil       .  .310 

Louvre,  Paris 

xlvi.  John  Constable — The  Hay  Wain   .  .  .312 

National  Gallery,  London 

xlvii.  J.  M.  W.  TURNER — Crossing  the  Brook  .  .316 

National  Gallery  of  British  Art,  London 

xlviii.  Edouard  Manet — Olympia  .  .  .      326 

Louvre,  Paris 

xlix.  J.  M.  Whistler — Lillie  in  Our  Alley  .  .      328 

In  the  possession  of  John  J.  Cowan,  Esq. 


INTROTfUCTORT 

So  far  as  it  concerns  pictures  painted  upon  panel  or 
canvas  in  tempera  or  oils,  the  history  of  painting  begins 
with  Cimabue,  who  worked  in  Florence  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century.  That  the  art  was  practised 
in  much  earlier  times  may  readily  be  admitted,  and  the 
life-like  portraits  in  the  vestibule  at  the  National  Gallery 
taken  from  Greek  tombs  of  the  second  or  third  century 
are  sufficient  proofs  of  it;  but  for  the  origin  of  painting 
as  we  are  now  generally  accustomed  to  understand  the 
term  we  need  go  no  further  back  than  to  Cimabue  and 
his  contemporaries,  from  whose  time  the  art  has  un- 
interruptedly developed  throughout  Europe  until  the 
present  day. 

Oddly  enough  it  is  to  the  Christian  Church,  whose 
early  fathers  put  their  heaviest  ban  upon  all  forms  of 
art,  that  this  development  is  almost  wholly  due.  The 
reaction  against  paganism  began  to  die  out  when  the 
Christian  religion  was  more  firmly  established,  and  re- 
presentations of  Christ  and  the  Saints  executed  in 
mosaic  became  more  and  more  to  be  regarded  as  a  neces- 
sary, or  at  any  rate  a  regular  embellishment  of  the 
numerous  churches  which  were  built.  For  these  mosaics 
panel  paintings  began  in  time  to  be  substituted;  but  it 
was  long  before  any  of  the  human  feeling  of  art  was  to 

xi 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

be  found  in  them.  The  influence  of  S.  Francis  of  Assisi 
was  needed  to  prepare  the  way,  and  it  was  only  towards 
the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  that  the  breath  of  life 
began  to  be  infused  into  these  conventional  representa- 
tions, and  painting  became  a  living  art. 

As  it  had  begun  in  Italy,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Church,  so  it  chiefly  developed  in  that  country;  at  first  in 
Florence  and  Siena,  later  in  Rome,  whither  its  greatest 
masters  were  summoned  by  the  Pope,  and  in  Venice, 
where,  farther  from  the  ecclesiastical  influence,  it  flour- 
ished more  exuberantly,  and  so  became  more  capable  of 
being  transplanted  to  other  countries.  In  Germany,  how- 
ever, and  the  Low  Countries  it  had  appeared  early  enough 
to  be  considered  almost  as  an  independent  growth, 
though  not  till  considerably  later  were  the  northern 
schools  capable  of  sustaining  the  reputation  given  them 
by  the  Van  Eycks  and  Roger  Van  der  Weyden. 

But  for  the  effects  of  the  Renaissance  in  Italy  in  the 
fifteenth  century  it  is  questionable  whether  painting 
would  ever  have  spread  as  it  did  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  to  Spain  and  France.  But  by  the  close 
of  the  fifteenth  century  such  enormous  progress  had 
been  made  by  the  Italian  painters  towards  the  realisa- 
tion of  human  action  and  emotion  in  pictures,  that  from 
being  merely  an  accessory  of  religious  establishments, 
painting  had  become  as  much  a  part  of  the  recognised 
means  of  intellectul  enjoyment  of  everyday  life  as  music, 
sculpture,  or  even  the  refinements  of  food  and  clothing. 

Portraiture,  in  particular,  had  gradually  advanced  to 
a  foremost  place  in  painting.  Originally  it  was  used 
exclusively  for  memorials  of  the  dead — as  we  have  seen 


Xll 


Introductory 

in  the  case  of  the  paintings  from  the  Greek  tombs — and 
on  coins  and  medals.  But  gradually  the  practice  arose, 
as  painters  became  more  skilful  in  representing  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  model,  of  introducing  the  features  and 
figures  of  actual  personages  into  religious  pictures,  in 
the  character  of  "donors,"  and  as  these  increased  in 
importance,  the  sacred  personages  were  gradually  rele- 
gated to  the  background,  and  ultimately  dispensed  with 
altogether.  At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century 
we  find  Hans  Holbein  (as  an  example)  recommended  by 
Erasmus  to  Sir  Thomas  More  as  a  portrait  painter  who 
wished  to  try  his  fortunes  in  England  ;  and  during  the 
rest  of  his  life  painting  practically  nothing  but  portraits. 
By  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  if  not  earlier, 
painting  had  become  almost  as  much  a  business  as  an 
art,  not  only  in  Italy  but  in  most  other  countries  in 
Europe,  and  was  established  in  each  country  more  or 
less  independently.  So  that  making  every  allowance  for 
the  various  foreign  influences  that  affected  each  different 
country,  it  is  convenient  to  trace  the  development  of 
painting  in  each  country  separately,  and  we  arrange  our 
chapters  accordingly  under  the  titles  of  Tuscan  and 
Venetian  (the  two  main  divisions  of  Italian  painting), 
Spanish,  Flemish,  Dutch,  German,  French,  and  British 
Schools.  In  each  country,  as  might  be  expected — and 
especially  in  Italy — there  are  subdivisions;  but,  broadly 
speaking,  the  lover  of  pictures  will  be  quite  well  enough 
equipped  for  the  enjoyment  of  them  if  he  is  able  to 
recognise  their  country,  and  roughly  their  period,  with- 
out troubling  about  the  particular  district  or  personal 
influence  oi"  their  origin. 


Xlll 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

For  while  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  more  one 
knows  about  the  history  of  painting  in  general  the 
greater  will  be  the  appreciation  of  the  various  excel- 
lences which  tend  to  perfection,  it  is  absolutely  ridicu- 
lous to  suppose  that  only  the  learned  in  such  matters 
are  capable  of  deriving  enjoyment  from  a  beautiful 
picture,  or  of  expressing  an  opinion  upon  it.  In  the  first 
place,  the  picture  is  intended  for  the  public,  and  the 
public  have  therefore  the  best  right  to  say  whether  it 
pleases  them  or  not — and  why.  And  it  may  be  noted  as  a 
positive  fact  that  whenever  the  public,  in  any  country, 
have  a  free  choice  in  matters  of  art,  that  choice  generally 
turns  out  to  be  right,  and  is  ultimately  endorsed  by  the 
best  critics.  Most  of  the  vulgar  art  to  be  found  in  ad- 
vertisements and  the  illustrated  papers  is  put  there  by 
ignorant  and  vulgar  providers,  who  imagine  that  the 
whole  public  are  as  ignorant  and  vulgar  as  themselves; 
whereas  whenever  a  better  standard  of  taste  is  given  an 
opportunity,  it  never  fails  to  find  a  welcome.  Until  Sir 
Henry  Wood  inaugurated  the  present  regime,  the 
Promenade  Concerts  at  Covent  Garden  were  popu- 
larly supposed  to  represent  the  national  taste  in  music. 
Until  the  Temple  Classics  and  Every  Man's  Library 
were  published  it  was  commonly  supposed  that  the 
people  at  large  cared  for  nothing  but  Bow  Bells,  the 
Penny  Novelette,  or  such  unclassical  if  alluring  pro- 
vender. In  the  domain  of  painting,  the  Royal  Academy 
has  such  a  firm  and  ancient  hold  on  the  popular  imagina- 
tion of  the  English  that  its  influence  is  difficult  to  dispel; 
but  there  are  many  signs  that  its  baneful  ascendency  is 
at  length  on  the  decline;  and  it  is  well  known  that  the 


XIV 


Introductory 


National  Gallery  is  attracting  more  and  more  visitors 
and  Burlington  House  less  and  less  as  the  years  go  on. 
In  the  following  attempt  at  a  general  survey  of  the 
history  of  painting — imperfect  or  ill-proportioned  as  it 
may  appear  to  this  or  that  specialist  or  lover  of  any 
particular  school — I  have  thought  it  best  to  assume  a  fair 
amount  of  ignorance  of  the  subject  on  the  part  of  the 
reader,  though  without,  I  hope,  taking  any  advantage  of 
it,  even  if  it  exists;  and  I  have  therefore  drawn  freely 
upon  several  old  histories  and  handbooks  for  both  facts 
and  opinions  concerning  the  old  masters  and  their 
works.  In  some  cases,  I  think,  a  dead  lion  is  decidedly 
better  than  a  live  dog. 

R.  D. 

Chelsea,  191 4. 


xv 


TUSCAN  SCHOOLS 


GIOVANNI  CIMABUE 

By  the  will  of  God,  in  the  year  1240,  we  are  told  by  Giovanni 
Vasari,  Giovanni  Cimabue,  of  the  noble  family  of  that  Cimabue 
name,  was  born  in  the  city  of  Florence,  to  give  the  first 
light  to  the  art  of  painting.  Vasari's  "Lives  of  the  Pain- 
ters" was  first  published  in  Florence  in  1550,  and  with 
all  its  defects  and  all  its  inaccuracies,  which  have  afford- 
ed so  much  food  for  contention  among  modern  critics, 
it  is  still  the  principal  source  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
earlier  history  of  painting  as  it  was  revived  in  Italy  in 
the  thirteenth  century. 

Making  proper  allowance  for  Vasari's  desire  to 
glorify  his  own  city,  and  to  make  a  dignified  commence- 
ment to  his  work  by  attributing  to  Cimabue  more  than 
was  possibly  his  due,  we  need  not  be  deterred  by  the 
very  latest  dicta  of  the  learned  from  accepting  the  out- 
lines of  his  life  of  Cimabue  as  an  embodiment  of  the 
tradition  of  the  time  in  which  he  lived — two  centuries 
and  a  quarter  after  Cimabue — and,  until  contradicted 
by  positive  evidence,  as  worthy  of  general  credence.  In 
the  popular  mind  Cimabue  still  remains  "The  Father 
of  modern  painting,"  and  though  his  renown  may  have 
attracted  more  pictures  and  more  legends  to  his  name 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Giovanni  than  properly  belong  to  him,  it  is  certain  that  Dante, 
Cimabue  his  contemporary,  wrote  of  him  thus: — 

Credette  Cimabue  nella  pintura 

Tener  lo  campo,  ed  ora  ha  Giotto  il  grido 

Si  che  la  fama  di  colui  s'oscura. 

This  is  at  least  as  important  as  anything  written  by  a 
contemporary  of  William  Shakspeare;  and  even  if  we 
are  required  to  believe  that  some  of  his  most  important 
works  are  by  another  hand,  his  influence  on  the  history 
of  his  art  is  beyond  question.  Let  us  then  follow  Vasari 
a  little  further,  and  we  shall  find,  at  any  rate,  what  is 
typical  of  the  development  of  genius. 

"Thisyouth,  "Vasari  continues,  "being  considered  by 
his  father  and  others  to  give  proof  of  an  acute  judgment 
and  a  clear  understanding,  was  sent  to  Santa  Maria 
Novella  to  study  letters  under  a  relation  who  was  then 
master  in  grammar  to  the  novices  of  that  convent.  But 
Cimabue,  instead  of  devoting  himself  to  letters,  con- 
sumed the  whole  day  in  drawing  men,  horses,  houses, 
and  other  various  fancies  on  his  books  and  different 
papers — an  occupation  to  which  he  felt  himself  impelled 
by  nature." 

This  is  exactly  what  is  recorded  of  Reynolds,  it  may 
be  noted,  and  very  much  the  same  as  in  the  case  of 
Gainsborough,  Benjamin  West — and  many  a  modern 
painter. 

"  This  natural  inclination  was  favoured  by  fortune, 
for  the  governors  of  the  city  had  invited  certain  Greek 
(probably  Byzantine)  painters  to  Florence,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  restoring  the  art  of  painting,  which  had  not 
merely  degenerated  but  was  altogether  lost.  These 
artists,  among  other  works,  began  to  paint  the  chapel 
of  the  Gondi  in  Santa  Maria  Novella,  and  Cimabue, 
often  escaping  from  the  school,  and  having  already 


Tuscan  Schools 

made  a  commencement  of  the  art  he  was  so  fond  of,  Giovanni 
would  stand  watching  these  masters  at  their  work.  His  Cimabue 
father,  and  the  artists  themselves,  therefore  concluded 
that  he  must  be  well  endowed  for  painting,  and  thought 
that  much  might  be  expected  from  him  if  he  devoted 
himself  to  it.  Giovanni  was  accordingly,  much  to  his 
delight,  placed  with  these  masters,  whom  he  soon  greatly 
surpassed  both  in  design  and  colouring.  For  they, 
caring  little  for  the  progress  of  art,  executed  their  works 
not  in  the  excellent  manner  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  but 
in  the  rude  modern  style  of  their  own  day.  Wherefore, 
though  Cimabue  imitated  them,  he  very  much  improved 
the  art,  relieving  it  greatly  from  their  uncouth  manner 
and  doing  honour  to  his  country  by  the  name  that  he 
acquired  and  by  the  works  which  he  performed.  Of  this 
we  have  evidence  in  Florence  from  the  pictures  which 
he  painted  there — as  for  example  the  front  of  the  altar 
of  Saint  Cecilia  and  a  picture  of  the  Virgin,  in  Santa 
Croce,  which  was  and  still  is  (i.e.  in  1550)  attached  to 
one  of  the  pilasters  on  the  right  of  the  choir." 

Unfortunately  the  very  first  example  cited  pulls  us 
up  short  alongside  the  official  catalogue  of  the  Uffizi 
Gallery  (where  the  picture  was  placed  in  1841),  in  which 
it  is  catalogued  (No.  20)  as  "Unknown  .  .  .  Vasari 
erroneously  attributes  it  to  Cimabue." 

Tiresome  as  it  may  seem  to  be  thus  distracted,  at 
the  very  outset,  by  the  question  of  authenticity,  it  is 
nevertheless  desirable  to  start  with  a  clear  understand- 
ing that  in  surveying  in  a  general  way  the  history  and 
development  of  painting,  it  will  be  quite  hopeless  to  wait 
for  the  final  word  on  the  supposed  authorship  of  every 
picture  mentioned.  In  this  instance,  as  it  happens,  there 
is  no  reason  to  question  the  modern  catalogue,  though 
that  is  by  no  means  the  same  thing  as  denying  that 

3 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Giovanni  Cimabue  painted  the  picturewhich  existed  in  the  church 
Cimabue  of  S.  Cecilia  in  Vasari's  time.  Is  it  more  likely,  it  may- 
be asked,  that  Vasari,  who  is  accused  of  unduly  glorify- 
ing Cimabue,  would  attribute  to  him  a  work  not  worthy 
of  his  fame,  or  that  during  the  three  centuries  since 
Vasari  wrote  a  substitution  was  effected?  The  other 
picture,  the  Madonna  and 'Chi 'Id Enthroned r,  which  found 
its  way  into  our  National  Gallery  in  1857,  is  still  offici- 
ally catalogued  as  the  work  of  Cimabue,  and  it  is  to 
be  hoped  that  this  precious  relic,  together  with  the 
Madonnas  in  the  Louvre,  the  Florence  Academy,  and 
in  the  lower  church  at  Assisi,  may  be  long  spared  to  us 
by  the  authority  of  the  critics  as  "genuine  productions" 
of  the  beloved  master. 

On  the  general  question,  however,  let  me  reassure 
the  reader  by  stating  that  so  far  as  possible  I  have 
avoided  the  mention  of  any  pictures,  in  the  following 
pages,  about  which  there  is  any  grave  doubt,  save  in  a 
few  cases  where  tradition  is  so  firmly  established  that 
it  seems  heartless  to  disturb  it  until  final  judgment  is 
entered — of  which  the  following  examples  of  Cimabue' s 
reputed  work  may  be  taken  as  types.  The  latest  criti- 
cism seeks  to  deprive  him  of  every  single  existing  pic- 
ture he  is  believed  to  have  painted;  those  mentioned  by 
Vasari  which  have  perished  may  be  considered  equally 
unauthentic,  but,  as  before  mentioned,  his  account  of 
them  gives  us  as  well  as  anything  else  the  story  of  the 
beginnings  of  the  art. 

Having  afterwards  undertaken,  Vasari  continues,  to 
paint  a  large  picture  in  the  Abbey  of  the  Santa  Trinita 
in  Florence  for  the  monks  of  Vallombrosa,  he  made 
great  efforts  to  justify  the  high  opinion  already  formed 
of  him  and  showed  greater  powers  of  invention,  especi- 
ally in  the  attitude  of  the  Virgin,  whom  he  depicted  with 

4 


Tuscan  Schools 

the  child  in  her  arms  and  numerous  angels  around  Giovanni 
her,  on  a  gold  ground.  This  is  the  picture  now  in  the  Cimabue 
Accademia  in  Florence.  The  frescoes  next  described 
are  no  longer  in  existence : — 

"Cimabue  next  painted  in  fresco  at  the  hospital  of  the 
Porcellana  at  the  corner  of  the  Via  Nuova  which  leads 
into  the  Borgo  Ogni  Santi.  On  the  front  of  this  build- 
ing, which  has  the  principal  door  in  the  centre,  he 
painted  the  Virgin  receiving  the  Annunciation  from  the 
angel,  on  one  side,  and  Christ  with  Cleophas  and  Luke 
on  the  other,  all  the  figures  the  size  of  life.  In  this  work 
he  departed  more  decidedly  from  the  dry  and  formal 
manner  of  his  instructors,  giving  more  life  and  move- 
ment to  the  draperies,  vestments  and  other  accessories, 
and  rendering  all  more  flexible  and  natural  than  was 
common  to  the  manner  of  those  Greeks  whose  work 
were  full  of  hard  lines  and  sharp  angles  as  well  in 
mosaic  as  in  painting.  And  this  rude  unskilful  manner 
the  Greeks  had  acquired  not  so  much  from  study  or 
settled  purpose  as  from  having  servilely  followed  cer- 
tain fixed  rules  and  habits  transmitted  through  a  long 
series  of  years  by  one  painter  to  another,  while  none 
ever  thought  of  the  amelioration  of  his  design,  the  em- 
bellishment of  his  colouring,  or  the  improvement  of  his 
invention." 

After  describing  Cimabue's  activities  at  Pisa  and 
Assisi  with  equal  circumstance,  Vasari  passes  to  the 
famous  Rucellai  Madonna,  now  supposed  to  be  by  the 
hand  of  Duccio  of  Siena.  However  doubtful  the  story 
may  appear  in  the  light  of  modern  criticism,  historical 
or  artistic,  it  certainly  forms  part  of  the  history  of 
painting — for  its  spirit  if  not  for  its  accuracy — and  as 
such  it  can  never  be  too  often  quoted  : — 

'•  He  afterwards  painted  the  picture  of  the  Virgin 

5 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Giovanni  for  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  Novella,  where  it  is  sus- 
Cimabue  pended  on  high  between  the  chapel  of  the  Rucellai 
family  and  that  of  the  Bardi.  This  picture  is  of  larger 
size  than  any  figure  that  had  been  painted  down  to  those 
times,  and  the  angels  surrounding  it  make  it  evident 
that  although  Cimabue  still  retained  the  Greek  manner, 
he  was  nevertheless  gradually  approaching  the  mode  of 
outline  and  general  method  of  modern  times.  Thus  it 
happened  that  this  work  was  an  object  of  so  much 
admiration  to  the  people  of  that  day — they  having  never 
seen  anything  better — that  it  was  carried  in  solemn  pro- 
cession, with  the  sound  of  trumpets  and  other  festal  de- 
monstration, from  the  house  of  Cimabue  to  the  Church, 
he  himself  being  highly  rewarded  and  honoured  for  it. 
It  is  further  reported,  and  may  be  read  in  certain  records 
of  old  painters,  that  while  Cimabue  was  painting  this 
picture  in  a  garden  near  the  gate  of  S.  Pietro,  King 
Charles  the  Elder  of  Anjou  passed  through  Florence, 
and  the  authorities  of  the  city,  among  other  marks  of 
respect,  conducted  him  to  see  the  picture  of  Cimabue. 
When  this  work  was  thus  shown  to  the  King,  it  had  not 
before  been  seen  by  anyone;  wherefore  all  the  men  and 
women  of  Florence  hastened  in  great  crowds  to  admire 
it,  making  all  possible  demonstration  of  delight." 

Now  whether  or  not  Vasari  was  right  in  crediting 
Cimabue  with  these  honours  in  Florence  instead  of 
Duccio  in  Siena,  makes  little  difference  in  the  story  of 
the  origin  and  early  development  of  the  art  of  painting. 
One  may  doubt  the  accuracy  of  the  mosaic  account  of  the 
Creation,  the  authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  or  the 
Shakspearean  poems,  or  the  list  of  names  of  the  Nor- 
mans who  are  recorded  to  have  fought  with  William  the 
Conqueror.  But  what  if  one  may?  The  Creation,  the 
poems  and  plays  of  Shakspeare  and  the  battle  of  Hast- 

6 


Tuscan  Schools 

ings  are  all  of  them  historic  facts,  and  neither  science,  Giovanni 
nor  literature,  nor  history  is  a  penny  the  worse  for  the  Cimabue 
loose  though  perfectly  understandable  conditions  under 
which  these  facts  have  been  handed  down  to  us.  When 
we  come  down  to  times  nearer  to  our  own  the  accuracy 
of  data  is  more  easily  ascertainable,  though  the  con- 
fusion arising  out  of  them  often  obscures  their  real  sig- 
nificance; but  in  looking  for  origins  we  are  content  to 
ignore  the  details,  provided  we  can  find  enough  general 
information  on  which  to  form  an  idea  of  them.  To  these 
first  chapters  of  Vasari,  then,  we  need  not  hesitate  to 
resort  for  the  main  sources  of  the  earlier  history  of  paint- 
ing. Even  so  far  as  we  have  gone  we  have  learnt  several 
important  facts  as  to  the  nature  of  the  foundations  on 
which  the  glorious  structure  was  to  be  raised. 

First  of  all,  it  is  apparent  that  the  practice  of  paint- 
ing, though  strictly  forbidden  by  the  earliest  Fathers 
of  the  Church,  was  used  by  the  faithful  in  the  Eastern 
churches  for  purposes  of  decoration,  and  was  introduced 
into  Italy — we  may  safely  say  Tuscany — for  the  same 
purpose. 

Second,  that  being  transplanted  into  this  new  soil, 
it  put  forth  such  wonderful  blossoms  that  it  came  to  be 
cultivated  with  much  more  regard  ;  and  from  being 
merely  a  necessary  or  conventional  ornament  of  certain 
portions  of  the  church,  was  soon  accounted  its  greatest 
glory. 

Third,  that  it  was  accorded  popular  acclamation. 

Fourth,  that  its  most  attractive  feature  in  the  eyes 
of  beholders  was  its  lifelike  representation  of  the 
human  form  and  other  natural  objects. 

Prosaic  as  these  considerations  may  appear,  they 
are  nevertheless  the  fundamental  principles  that  under- 
lie the  whole  of  the  subsequent  development  of  paint- 

7 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Giovanni  ing;  and  unless  every  picture  in  the  world  were  de- 
Cimabue  stroyed,  and  the  art  of  painting  wholly  lost  for  at  least  a 
thousand  years,  there  could  not  be  another  picture  pro- 
duced which  would  not  refer  back  through  continuous 
tradition  to  one  or  every  one  of  them.  First,  the  basis 
of  religion.  Second,  the  development  peculiar  to  the 
soil.  Third,  the  imitation  of  nature.  Fourth,  the  appro- 
bation of  the  public — there  we  have  the  four  cardinal 
points  in  the  chart  of  painting. 

It  would  be  easy  enough  to  contend  that  painting 
had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  religion — if  only  by 
reference  to  the  godless  efforts  of  some  of  the  modern- 
ists; but  such  a  contention  could  only  be  based  on  the 
imperfect  recognition  of  what  religion  actually  means. 
In  Italy  in  the  thirteenth  century,  as  in  Spain  in  the 
seventeenth,  it  meant  the  Church  of  Rome.  In  Ger- 
many of  the  sixteenth,  as  in  England  in  the  eighteenth, 
it  meant  something  totally  different.  To  put  it  a  little 
differently,  all  painting  that  is  worth  so  calling  has  been 
done  to  the  glory  of  God ;  and  after  making  due  allow- 
ance for  human  frailties  of  every  variety,  it  is  hard  to 
say  that  among  all  the  hundreds  of  great  and  good 
painters  there  has  ever  been  one  who  was  not  a  good 
man. 

As  for  the  influence  of  environment,  or  nationality, 
this  is  so  universally  recognised  that  the  term  "school" 
more  often  means  locality  than  tuition.  We  talk  gener- 
ally of  the  French,  English,  or  Dutch  schools,  and  more 
particularly  of  the  Paduan,  Venetian,  or  Florentine.  It 
is  only  when  we  hesitate  to  call  our  national  treasure  a 
Botticelli  or  a  Bellini  that  we  add  the  words  "school  of" 
to  the  name  of  the  master  who  is  fondly  supposed  to 
have  inspired  its  author.  The  difference  between  a 
wood  block  of  the  early  eighteenth  century  executed  in 

8 


Tuscan  Schools 

England  and  Japan  respectively  may  be  cited  as  an  Giovanni 
extreme  instance  of  the  effect  of  locality  on  idea,  when  Cimabue 
the  method  is  identical. 

With  reference  to  the  imitation  of  nature,  at  the 
mere  mention  of  which  modernists  become  so  furious, 
it  is  worth  recalling  that  the  earliest  story  about  paint- 
ing relates  to  Zeuxis,  who  is  said  to  have  painted  a 
bunch  of  grapes  with  such  skill  that  the  birds  ignored 
the  fruit  and  pecked  at  the  picture.  In  later  times  we 
hear  of  Rembrandt  being  the  butt  of  his  pupils,  who, 
knowing  his  love  of  money,  used  to  paint  coins  on  the 
floor;  and  there  are  plenty  of  stories  of  people  painting 
flies  and  other  objects  so  naturally  as  to  deceive  the 
unwary  spectator.  Vasari  is  continually  praising  his 
compatriots  for  painting  "like  the  life." 

Lastly,  the  approbation,  or  if  possible  the  acclama- 
tion, of  the  public  has  seldom  if  ever  been  unconsidered 
by  the  artist.  Where  it  has,  it  has  only  been  the  great- 
est genius  that  has  been  able  to  exist  without  it.  A  man 
who  has  anything  to  say  must  have  somebody  to  say  it 
to;  and  though  a  painter  may  seem  to  be  wasting  the 
best  part  of  his  life  in  trying  to  make  the  people  under- 
stand what  he  has  to  say  in  his  language  instead  of 
talking  to  them  in  their  own  common  tongue,  it  is 
rarely  that  he  fails  in  the  end,  even  if,  alas  for  him,  the 
understanding  comes  too  late  to  be  of  any  benefit  to 
himself. 

Cimabue's  last  work  is  said  to  be  a  figure,  which  was 
left  unfinished,  of  S.  John,  in  mosaic,  for  the  Duomo  at 
Pisa.  This  was  in  1302,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the 
date  of  his  death,  though  Vasari  puts  it  two  years 
earlier,  at  the  time  he  was  engaged  with  the  architect 
Arnolfo  Lapi  in  superintending  the  building  of  the 
Duomo  in  Florence,  where  he  is  buried 

9 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 
ii 

GIOTTO  DI  BONDONE 

Giotto  di  While  according  all  due  honour,  and  probably  more, 
Bondone  to  Cimabue  as  the  originator  of  modern  painting,  it  is 
to  his  pupil,  Giotto,  that  we  are  accustomed  to  look  for 
the  first  developments  of  its  possibilities.  Had  Cima- 
bue's  successors  been  as  conservative  as  his  instructors, 
we  might  still  be  not  very  much  better  off  than  if  he 
had  never  lived.  For  much  as  there  is  to  admire  in 
Cimabue's  painting,  it  is  only  the  first  flush  of  the  dawn 
which  it  heralded,  and  though  containing  the  germ  of 
the  future  development  of  the  art,  is  yet  without  any 
of  the  glory  which  in  the  fulness  of  time  was  to  result 
from  it. 

To  Giotto,  Vasari  considers,  "is  due  the  gratitude 
which  the  masters  in  painting  owe  to  Nature,  seeing 
that  he  alone  succeeded  in  resuscitating  art  and  restor- 
ing her  to  a  path  that  may  be  called  the  true  one;  and 
that  the  art  of  design,  of  which  his  contemporaries  had 
little  if  any  knowledge,  was  by  his  means  effectually  re- 
called to  life."  This  seems  to  detract  in  some  degree 
from  his  eulogies  of  Cimabue;  but  it  is  to  the  last 
sentence  that  our  attention  should  be  directed,  which 
implies  that  in  profiting  by  the  master's  example  he 
succeeded  in  extending  the  possibilities  of  the  new  art 
beyond  its  first  limits.  Cimabue,  we  may  believe,  drew 
his  Virgins  and  Saints  from  living  models,  whereas 
his  predecessors  had  merely  repeated  formulas  laid 
down  for  them  by  long  tradition.  Giotto  went  further, 
and  extended  his  scope  to  the  world  at  large.  For  the 
plain  gold  background  he  substituted  the  landscape, 

10 


Tuscan  Schools 

thus  breaking  down,  as  it  were,  a  great  wall,  and  seeing  Giotto  di 
beyond  it.  Nor  was  this  innovation  merely  a  technical  Bondone 
one — it  was  the  man's  nature  that  effected  it  and  made 
his  art  a  living  thing. 

Giotto,  who  was  born  in  1276,  was  the  son  of  a 
simple  husbandman,  who  lived  at  Vespignano,  about 
fourteen  miles  from  Florence.  Cimabue  chanced  upon 
the  boy  when  he  was  only  about  ten  years  old,  tending 
his  father's  sheep,  and  was  astonished  to  find  that  he 
was  occupied  in  making  a  drawing  of  one  of  them  upon 
a  smooth  piece  of  rock  with  a  sharp  stone.  He  was  so 
pleased  with  this  that  he  asked  to  be  allowed  to  take  him 
back  to  Florence,  and  the  boy  proved  so  apt  a  pupil  that 
before  very  long  he  was  regularly  employed  in  painting. 

His  influence  was  not  confined  to  Florence,  or  even 
to  Tuscany,  but  the  whole  of  Italy  was  indebted  to  him 
for  a  new  impulse  in  art,  and  he  is  said  to  have  followed 
Pope  Clement  V.  to  Avignon  and  executed  many  pic- 
tures there.  Giotto  was  not  only  a  painter,  but  his  name 
is  also  famous  in  the  history  of  architecture:  the  won- 
derful Campanile  adjoining  the  Duomo  in  Florence 
was  designed  by  him,  and  the  foundations  laid  and  the 
building  erected  under  his  instructions.  On  sculpture 
too  he  exercised  a  considerable  influence,  as  may  be  seen 
in  the  panels  and  statues  which  adorn  the  lower  part  of 
the  tower,  suggested  if  not  actually  designed  by  Giotto, 
and  carved  by  Andrea  Pisano. 

Chief  of  the  earlier  works  of  Giotto  are  his  frescoes 
in  the  under  church  at  Assisi,  and  in  these  may  be  seen 
the  remarkable  fertility  of  invention  with  which  he 
endowed  his  successors.  Instead  of  the  conventional 
Madonna  and  Child,  and  groups  of  saints  and  angels, 
we  have  here  whole  legends  represented  in  a  series  of 
pictures  of  almost  dramatic  character.   In  the  four  tri- 


1 1 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Giotto  di  angular  compartments  of  the  groined  vaulting  are  the 
Bondone  three  vows  of  the  Franciscan  Order,  namely,  Poverty, 
Chastity,  and  Obedience,  and  in  the  fourth  the  glorifica- 
tion of  the  saint.  In  the  first,  the  Vow  of  Poverty,  it  is 
significant  to  find  that  he  has  taken  his  subject  from 
Dante.  Poverty  appears  as  a  woman  whom  Christ  gives 
in  marriage  to  S.  Francis:  she  stands  among  thorns; 
in  the  foreground  are  two  youths  mocking  her,  and  on 
either  side  a  group  of  angels  as  witnesses  of  the  holy 
union.  On  the  left  is  a  youth,  attended  by  an  angel, 
giving  his  cloak  to  a  poor  man;  on  the  right  are  the  rich 
and  great,  who  are  invited  by  an  angel  to  approach,  but 
turn  scornfully  away.  The  other  designs  appear  to  be 
Giotto's  own  invention.  Chastity,  as  a  young  woman, 
sits  in  a  fortress  surrounded  by  walls,  and  angels  pay 
her  devotion.  On  one  side  are  laymen  and  churchmen 
led  forward  by  S.  Francis,  and  on  the  other  Penance, 
habited  as  a  hermit,  driving  away  earthly  love  and  im- 
purity. S.  Francis  in  glory  is  more  conventional,  as 
might  be  expected  from  the  nature  of  the  subject. 

In  the  ancient  Basilica  of  S.  Peter  in  Rome  Giotto 
made  the  celebrated  mosaic  of  the  Navicella,  which  is 
now  in  the  vestibule  of  S.  Peter's.  It  represents  a  ship, 
in  which  are  the  disciples,  on  a  stormy  sea.  According  to 
the  early  Christian  symbolisation  the  ship  denoted  the 
Church.  In  the  foreground  on  the  right  the  Saviour, 
walking  on  the  waves,  rescues  Peter.  Opposite  sits  a 
fisherman  in  tranquil  expectation,  typifying  the  con- 
fident hope  of  the  simple  believer.  This  mosaic  has 
frequently  been  moved,  and  has  undergone  so  much 
restoration  that  only  the  composition  can  be  attributed 
to  Giotto. 

Of  the  paintings  of  scriptural  history  attributed  to 
Giotto  very  few  remain,  and  the  greater  part  of  those 

12 


Tuscan  Schools 

have  in  recent  times  been  pronounced  to  be  the  work  of  Giotto  di 
his  followers.  Foremost,  however,  among  the  un-  Bondone 
doubted  examples  are  paintings  in  the  Chapel  of  the 
Madonna  dell'  Arena  at  Padua,  which  was  erected  in 
1303.  In  thirty-eight  pictures,  extending  in  three  rows 
along  the  wall,  is  contained  the  life  of  the  Virgin.  The 
ground  of  the  vaulting  is  blue  studded  with  gold  stars, 
among  which  appear  the  heads  of  Christ  and  the  pro- 
phets, while  above  the  arch  of  the  choir  is  the  Saviour 
in  a  glory  of  angels.  Combined  with  these  sacred  scenes 
and  personages  are  introduced  fitting  allusions  to  the 
moral  state  of  man,  the  lower  part  of  the  side  walls  con- 
taining, in  medallions  painted  in  monochrome,  allegori- 
cal figures  of  the  virtues  and  vices — the  former  feminine 
and  ideal,  the  latter  masculine  and  individual — while 
the  entrance  wall  is  covered  with  the  wonderful  Last 
Judgment. 

Here,  as  in  his  allegorical  pieces,  Giotto  appears  as 
a  great  innovator,  a  number  of  situations  suggested  by 
the  Scriptures  being  now  either  represented  for  the  first 
time  or  seen  in  a  totally  new  form.  Well-known  sub- 
jects are  enriched  with  numerous  subordinate  figures, 
making  the  picture  more  truthful  and  more  intelligible ; 
as  in  the  Flight  into  Egypt,  where  the  Holy  Family  is 
accompanied  by  a  servant,  and  three  other  figures  are 
introduced  to  complete  the  composition.  In  the  Raising 
of  Lazarus,  too,  the  disciples  behind  the  Saviour  on  the 
one  side  and  the  astonished  multitude  on  the  other  form 
two  choruses,  an  arrangement  which  is  followed,  but 
with  considerable  modification,  in  Ouwater's  unique 
picture  of  the  same  subject  now  in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich 
Museum  at  Berlin.  This  approach  to  dramatic  reality 
sometimes  assumes  a  character  which,  as  Kugler  puts 
it,  oversteps  the  strict  limits  of  the  higher  ecclesiastical 

13 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Giotto  di  style.  It  is  worth  noting,  however,  that  the  early 
Bondone  Netherlandish  school — as  we  shall  see  in  a  later  chapter 
— developed  this  characteristic  to  a  far  greater  extent, 
continuing  the  tradition  handed  down,  quite  independ- 
ently of  Giotto,  through  illuminated  manuscripts,  and 
with  less  of  that  expression  of  the  highest  religious  or 
moral  feeling  which  is  so  evident  in  Giotto. 

The  few  existing  altar-pieces  of  Giotto  are  less  im- 
portant than  his  frescoes,  inasmuch  as  they*do  not  admit 
of  the  exhibition  of  his  higher  and  most  original  gifts. 
Two  signed  examples  are  a  Coronation  of  the  Virgin  in 
Santa  Croce  at  Florence,  and  a  Madonna,  with  saints 
and  angels  on  the  side  panels,  originally  in  S.  Maria 
degli  Angeli  at  Bologna,  and  now  in  the  Breraat  Milan. 
The  latter,  however,  is  not  now  recognised  as  his.  The 
earliest  authentic  example  is  the  so-called  Stefaneschi 
altar-piece,  painted  in  1298  for  the  same  patron  who 
commissioned  the  Navicella.  Giotto's  highest  merit 
consists  especially  in  the  number  of  new  subjects  which 
he  introduced,  in  the  lifelike  and  spiritual  expression 
with  which  he  heightened  all  familiar  occurrences  and 
scenes,  and  in  the  choice  of  the  moment  of  representa- 
tion. In  all  these  no  earlier  Christian  painter  can  be 
compared  with  him.  Another  and  scarcely  less  import- 
ant quality  he  possessed  is  in  the  power  of  conveying 
truth  of  character.  The  faces  introduced  into  some  of 
his  compositions  bear  an  inward  guarantee  of  their 
lively  resemblance  to  some  living  model,  and  this  char- 
acteristic seems  to  have  been  eagerly  seized  upon  by  his 
immediate  followers  for  emulation,  as  is  noticeable  in 
two  of  the  principal  works — in  the  Bargello  at  Florence, 
and  in  the  church  of  the  Incoronata  at  Naples — formerly 
attributed  to  him  but  now  relegated  to  his  pupils.  The 
portrait  of  Dante  in  a  fresco  on  the  wall  of  the  Bargello 

H 


Tuscan  Schools 

shows  a  deep  and  penetrating  mind,  and  in  the  Sacra-  Giotto  di 
ments  at  Naples  we  find  heads  copied  from  life  with  Bondone 
obvious  fidelity  and  such  a  natural  conception  of  par- 
ticularscenes  as  brings  them  to  the  mind  of  thespectator 
with  extraordinary  distinctness. 

Of  Giotto's  numerous  followers  in  the  fourteenth 
century  it  is  impossible  in  the  present  work  to  give  any 
particular  account,  but  of  his  influence  at  large  on  the 
practice  as  on  the  treatment  and  conception  of  painting 
at  this  stage  of  its  development,  one  or  two  examples 
may  be  cited  as  typical  of  the  progress  he  urged,  such 
as  the  frescoes  in  the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa.  This  won- 
derful cloister,  which  measures  four  hundred  feet  in 
length  and  over  a  hundred  in  width — traditionally  the 
dimensions  of  Noah's  ark — was  founded  by  the  Arch- 
bishop Ubaldo,  before  1 200,  on  his  return  from  Palestine 
bringing  fifty-three  ships  laden  with  earth  from  the 
Holy  Land.  On  this  soil  it  was  erected,  and  surrounded 
by  high  walls  in  1278.  The  whole  of  these  walls  were 
afterwards  adorned  with  paintings,  in  two  tiers. 

So  far  as  concerns  the  history  of  painting,  the  ques- 
tion of  the  authorship  of  these  frescoes — which  are  by 
several  distinct  hands — is  altogether  subordinate  to  that 
of  the  subjects  depicted  and  the  manner  in  which  they 
are  treated,  and  we  shall  learn  more  from  a  general  sur- 
vey of  them  than  by  following  out  the  fortunes  of  par- 
ticular painters.  The  earliest  are  those  on  the  east 
side,  near  the  chapel,  but  more  important  are  those  on 
the  north,  of  about  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
which  show  a  decided  advance,  both  in  feeling  and 
execution,  beyond  Giotto.  The  first  is  The  Triumph 
of  Death,  in  which  the  supernatural  is  tempered  with 
representations  of  what  is  mortal  to  an  extent  that  al- 
ready shows  that  painting  was  not  to  be  confined  to 

15 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Giotto  di religious  uses  alone.  All  the  pleasures  and  sorrows 
Bondone  of  life  are  here  represented,  on  the  earth;  it  is  only  in 
the  sky  that  we  see  the  demons  and  angels.  On  one 
side  is  a  festive  company  of  ladies  and  cavaliers,  with 
hawks  and  dogs,  seated  under  orange  trees,  with  rich 
carpets  at  their  feet,  all  splendidly  dressed.  A  trou- 
badour and  a  singing  girl  amuse  them  with  songs, 
amorini  flutter  around  them  and  wave  their  torches.  On 
the  other  side  is  another  group,  also  a  hunting  party, 
on  splendidly  caparisoned  horses,  and  accompanied  by 
a  train  of  attendants.  On  the  mountains  in  the  back- 
ground are  several  hermits,  who  in  contrast  to  the 
votaries  of  pleasure  have  attained  in  a  life  of  contem- 
plation and  abstinence  the  highest  term  of  human  ex- 
istence. Many  of  the  figures  are  traditionally  supposed 
to  be  portraits. 

The  centre  foreground  is  devoted  to  the  less  fortu- 
nate on  earth,  the  beggars  and  cripples,  and  also  corpses 
of  the  mighty;  and  with  these  we  may  turn  to  the  alle- 
gorical treatment  of  the  subject.  To  the  first  group  de- 
scends the  angel  of  death,  swinging  a  scythe,  and  to 
her  the  unfortunate  are  stretching  out  their  arms  in 
supplication  for  an  end  to  their  sorrows.  The  second 
group,  it  will  be  seen,  are  tracing  a  path  which  leads  to 
three  open  coffins  in  which  lie  the  bodies  of  three  princes 
in  different  stages  of  decay,  while  a  monk  on  crutches 
— intended  for  S.  Macarius — is  pointing  to  them.  The 
air  is  filled  with  angels  and  demons,  some  of  whom 
receive  the  souls  of  the  dead. 

A  second  picture  is  The  Last Judgment \  and  a  third 
Hell,  the  resemblance  between  which  and  the  great  altar- 
piece  in  the  Strozzi  Chapel  in  Santa  Maria  Novella  at 
Florence,  painted  by  Andrea  Orcagna  in  1357,  was 
formerly  considered  proof  of  the  same  authorship.  They 

16 


Tuscan  Schools 

are  now  attributed  to  an  unknown  disciple  of  Pietro  Giotto  di 
Lorenzetti,  who  was  painting  in  Siena  between  1306  Bondone 
and  1348,  and  is  assumed  to  have  been  a  pupil  of  Duccio. 

The  fourth  picture,  apparently  by  another  hand — 
possibly  that  of  Lorenzetti  himself — is  The  Life  of  the 
Hermits  in  the  wilderness  of  Thebais,  composed  of  a 
number  of  single  groups  in  which  the  calm  life  of  con- 
templation is  represented  in  the  most  varied  manner. 
In  front  flows  the  Nile,  and  a  number  of  hermits  are 
seen  on  its  banks  still  subjected  to  earthly  occupa- 
tions; they  catch  fish,  hew  wood,  carry  burdens  to  the 
city,  etc.  Higher  up,  in  the  mountains,  they  are  more 
estranged  from  the  world,  but  the  Tempter  follows 
them  in  various  disguises,  sometimes  frightful,  some- 
times seducing.  As  a  whole  this  composition  is  con- 
structed in  the  ancient  manner — as  in  Byzantine  art — 
several  series  rising  one  above  the  other,  each  of  equal 
size,  and  without  any  pretension  to  perspective:  the 
single  groups,  at  the  same  time,  are  executed  with 
much  grace  and  feeling. 

Next  to  this  are  six  pictures  of  the  history  of 
S.  Ranieri,  and  as  many  of  the  lives  of  S.  Efeso  and 
S.  Potito.  The  latter  are  known  to  have  been  painted  in 
1392  by  Spinello  of  Arezzo,  or  Spinello  Aretino  as  he 
is  called,  of  whose  work  we  have  some  fragments  in  the 
National  Gallery — alas  too  few!  Two  of  these  fragments 
are  from  his  large  fresco  The  Fall  of  the  Rebellious 
Angels,  painted  for  the  church  of  S.  Maria  degli  An- 
geli  at  Arezzo,  which  after  being  whitewashed  over  were 
rescued  on  the  conversion  of  the  church  to  secular  uses. 
Vasari  relates  that  when  Spinello  had  finished  thiswork 
the  devil  appeared  to  him  in  the  night  as  horrible  and 
deformed  as  in  the  picture,  and  asked  him  where  he  had 
seen  him  in  so  frightful  a  form,  and  why  he  had  treated 

B  jy 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Giotto  dl  him  so  ignominiously.  Spinello  awoke  from  his  dream 
Botidone  with  horror,  fell  into  a  state  of  abstraction,  and  soon 
afterwards  died. 

On  the  third  part  of  the  south  wall  is  represented 
the  history  of  Job,  in  a  series  of  paintings  which  were 
formerly  attributed  to  Giotto  himself,  though  it  is  now- 
recognised  that  they  cannot  be  of  an  earlier  date  than 
about  1370. 

The  Temptation  of  Job  is  by  Taddeo  Gaddi,  and 
the  others,  painted  in  1372,  are  probably  by  Francesco 
da  Volterra — not  to  be  confused  with  the  sixteenth 
century  painter  Daniele  da  Volterra. 

The  paintings  on  the  west  wall  are  of  inferior  work- 
manship, while  those  on  the  north  were  the  crowning 
achievement  of  Benozzo  Gozzoli  a  century  later. 


Ill 

THE  EARLIER  QUATTROCENTISTS 

Coming  to  the  second  period  in  the  development  of 
the  new  art — roughly,  that  is  to  say,  from  1400  to  1450 
— Vasari  observes  that  even  where  there  is  no  great 
facility  displayed,  yet  the  works  evince  great  care  and 
thought ;  the  manner  is  more  free  and  graceful,  the  col- 
ouring more  varied  and  pleasing;  more  figures  are  em- 
ployed in  the  compositions,  and  the  drawing  is  more  cor- 
rect inasmuch  as  it  is  closer  to  nature.  It  was  Masaccio, 
he  says,  who  during  this  period  superseded  the  manner 
of  Giotto  in  regard  to  the  painting  of  flesh,  draperies, 
buildings,  etc.,  and  also  restored  the  practiceof  foreshort- 
ening and  brought  to  light  that  modern  manner  which 
has  been  followed  by  all  artists.  More  natural  attitudes, 
and  more  effectual  expression  of  feeling  in  the  gestures 

18 


Tuscan  Schools 

and  movements  of  the  body  resulted,  as  art  seeking  to  The  earlier 
approach  the  truth  of  nature  by  more  correct  drawing  Quattro- 
and  to  exhibit  so  close  a  resemblance  to  the  face  of  the  centists 
living  person  that  each  figure  might  at  once  be  recog- 
nised. Thus  these  masters  constantly  endeavoured  to  re- 
produce what  they  beheld  in  nature  and  no  more;  their 
works  became  consequently  more  carefully  considered 
and  better  understood.  This  gave  them  courage  to  lay 
down  rules  for  perspective  and  to  carry  the  foreshorten- 
ings  precisely  to  the  point  which  gives  an  exact  imita- 
tion of  the  relief  apparent  in  nature  and  the  real  form. 
Minute  attention  to  the  effects  of  light  and  shade  and  to 
various  technical  difficulties  ensued,  and  efforts  were 
made  towards  a  better  order  of  composition.  Land- 
scapes also  were  attempted;  tracts  of  country,  trees, 
shrubs,  flowers,  clouds,  the  air,  and  other  natural  objects 
were  depicted  with  some  resemblance  to  the  realities  re- 
presented ;  insomuch  that  the  art  might  be  said  not  only 
to  have  become  ennobled,  but  to  have  attained  to  that 
flower  of  youth  from  which  the  fruit  afterwards  to  follow 
might  reasonably  be  looked  for. 

Foremost  among  the  painters  of  this  period  was  Fra 
ANGELico,ortogive  him  his  proper  title,  Frate  Giovanni 
da  Fiesole,  who  was  born  in  1387  not  far  from  Florence, 
and  died  in  1455.  When  he  was  twenty  years  old  he 
joined  the  order  of  the  preaching  friars,  and  all  his  paint- 
ing is  devoted  to  religious  subjects.  He  was  a  man  of  the 
utmost  simplicity,  and  most  holy  in  every  act  of  his  life. 
He  disregarded  all  worldly  advantages.  Kindly  to  all, 
and  temperate  in  all  his  habits,  he  used  to  say  that  he 
who  practised  the  art  of  painting  had  need  of  quiet,  and 
should  live  without  cares  and  anxious  thoughts;  adding 
that  he  who  would  do  the  work  of  Christ  should  per- 
petually remain  with  Christ.  He  was  most  humble  and 

19 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  earlier  modest,  and  in  his  painting  he  gave  evidence  of  piety 
Quattro-  and  devotion  as  well  as  of  ability,  and  the  saints  that  he 
centists  painted  have  more  of  the  air  of  sanctity  than  have  those 
of  any  other  master. 

It  was  the  custom  of  Fra  Angelico  to  abstain  from 
retouching  or  improving  any  painting  once  finished. 
He  altered  nothing,  but  left  all  as  it  was  done  the  first 
time,  believing,  as  he  said,  that  such  was  the  will  of  God. 
It  is  also  affirmed  that  he  would  never  take  his  brushes 
in  hand  until  he  had  first  offered  a  prayer,  and  he  is  said 
never  to  have  painted  a  crucifix  without  tears  streaming 
from  his  eyes,  and  in  the  countenance  and  attitude  of  his 
figures  it  is  easy  to  perceive  proof  of  his  sincerity,  his 
goodness,  and  the  depth  of  his  devotion  to  the  religion 
of  Christ. 

This  is  well  seen  in  the  picture  of  the  Coronation  of 
the  Virgin,  which  is  now  in  the  Louvre  (No.  1 290).  "  Su- 
perior to  all  his  other  works,"  Vasari  says  of  this  master- 
piece, "and  one  in  which  he  surpassed  himself,  is  a  pic- 
ture in  the  Church  of  San  Domenico  at  Fiesole ;  in  this 
work  he  proves  the  high  quality  of  his  powers  as  well 
as  the  profound  intelligence  he  possessed  of  the  art 
he  practised.  The  subject  is  the  Coronation  of  the 
Virgin  by  Jesus  Christ;  the  principal  figures  are  sur- 
rounded by  a  choir  of  angels,  among  whom  are  a  vast 
number  of  saints  and  holy  personages,  male  and  female. 
These  figures  are  so  numerous,  so  well  executed  in  atti- 
tudes, so  various,  and  with  expressions  of  the  head  so 
richly  diversified,  that  one  feels  infinite  pleasure  and 
delight  in  regarding  them.  Nay,  one  is  convinced  that 
those  blessed  spirits  can  look  no  otherwise  in  heaven 
itself,  or,  to  speak  under  correction,  could  not  if  they  had 
forms  appear  otherwise;  for  all  the  saints  male  and 
female  assembled  here  have  not  only  life  and  expression 

20 


Tuscan  Schools 

most  delicately  and  truly  rendered,  but  the  colouring  The  earlier 
also  of  the  whole  work  would  seem  to  have  been  given  Qjiattro- 
by  the  hand  of  a  saint  or  of  an  angel  like  themselves,  ccntisto 
It  is  not  without  sufficient  reason  therefore  that  this 
excellent  ecclesiastic  is  always  called  Frate  Giovanni 
Angelico.  The  stories  from  the  life  of  Our  Lady  and  of 
San  Domenico  which  adorn  the  predella,  moreover,  are 
in  the  same  divine  manner;  and  I  for  myself  can  affirm 
with  truth  that  I  never  see  this  work  but  it  appears  some- 
thing new,  nor  can  I  ever  satisfy  myself  with  the  sight  of 
it  or  have  enough  of  beholding  it." 

J^o  less  beautiful  are  the  five  compartments  of  the 
predella  to  the  altar-piece  still  in  San  Domenico  at 
Fiesole — which  were  purchased  for  the  National  Gal- 
lery in  i860  at  the  then  alarming  price  of  ^"3500 — with 
no  less  than  two  hundred  and  sixty  little  figures  of 
saintly  personages,  "so  beautiful,"  as  Vasari  says,  "that 
they  appear  to  be  truly  beings  of  Paradise." 

Fra  Filippo  Lippi,  born  in  Florence  about  1406, 
and  dying  there  in  1469,  was  the  exact  antithesis  of  Fra 
Angelico,  both  in  his  private  life  and  in  the  method  of 
his  painting.  He  was  just  as  earthly  in  both  respects  as 
Fra  Angelico  was  heavenly.  As  a  child  he  was  put  with 
the  Carmelites,  and  as  he  showed  an  inclination  for 
drawing  rather  than  for  study,  he  was  allowed  every 
facility  for  studying  the  newly  painted  chapel  of  the 
Branacci,  and  followed  the  manner  of  Masaccio  so 
closely  that  it  was  said  that  the  spirit  of  that  master  had 
entered  into  his  body.  It  is  only  fair  to  Masaccio  to  add 
that  this  means  his  artistic  spirit,  for  Filippo's  moral 
character  was  by  no  means  exemplary.  The  story  of  one 
of  his  best-known  works,  The  Nativity,  which  is  now 
in  the  Louvre  (No.  1343),  is  thus  related  by  Vasari: — 
"  Having  received  a  commission  from  the  nuns  of  Santa 

21 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  earlier  Margherita,  at  Prato,  to  paint  a  picture  for  the  high  altar 
Quattro-  of  their  church,  he  chanced  one  day  to  see  the  daughter 
centists  0f  Francesco  Buti,  a  citizen  of  Florence,  who  had  been 
sent  to  the  convent  as  a  novice.  Filippo,  after  a  glance  at 
Lucrezia — for  that  was  her  name — was  so  taken  with 
her  beauty  that  he  prevailed  upon  the  nuns  to  allow  him 
to  paint  her  as  the  Virgin.  This  resulted  in  his  falling  so 
violently  in  love  with  her  that  he  induced  her  to  run 
away  with  him.  Resisting  every  effort  of  her  father  and 
of  the  nuns  to  make  her  leave  Filippo,  she  remained 
with  him,  and  bore  him  a  son  who  lived  to  be  almost  as 
famous  a  painter  as  his  father.  He  was  called  Filippino 
Lippi." 

The  picture  of  S.  John  and  six  saints  in  the  National 
Gallery  (No.  677)  also  recalls  the  story  of  his  wildness, 
inasmuch  as  it  came  from  the  Palazzo  Medici,  where 
Filippo  worked  for  the  great  Cosimo  di  Medici.  It  was 
well  known  that  Filippo  paid  no  attention  to  his  work 
when  he  was  engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  his  pleasures,  and 
so  Cosimo  shut  him  up  in  the  palace  so  that  he  might  not 
waste  his  time  in  running  about  while  working  for  him. 
But  Filippo  after  a  couple  of  days'  confinement  made  a 
rope  out  of  his  bed  clothes,  and  let  himself  down  from 
the  window,  and  for  several  days  gave  himself  up  to  his 
own  amusements.  When  Cosimo  found  that  he  had  dis- 
appeared, he  had  search  made  for  him,  and  at  last  Filippo 
returned;  after  which  Cosimo  was  afraid  to  shut  him  up 
again  in  view  of  the  risk  he  had  run  in  descending  from 
the  window. 

Vasari  considers  that  Filippo  excelled  in  his  smaller 
pictures — "In  these  he  surpassed  himself,  imparting  to 
them  a  grace  and  beauty  than  which  nothing  finer  could 
be  imagined.  Examples  of  this  may  be  seen  in  the  pre- 
dellasof  all  the  works  painted  by  him.  He  was  indeed  an 

22 


PLATE  I.— FILIPPO   LIPPI 
THE    ANNUNCIATION 

National  Gallery,  London 


Tuscan  Schools 

artist  of  such  power  that  in  his  own  time  he  was  sur-  The  earlier 
passed  by  none;  therefore  it  is  that  he  has  not  only  been  Quattro- 
always  praised  by  Michelangelo,  but  in  many  particulars  centists 
has  been  imitated  by  him." 

As  a  contributor  to  the  progress  of  the  art  of  paint- 
ing he  is  credited  by  Vasari  with  two  innovations, 
which  may  be  seen  in  his  paintings  in  the  church  of  San 
Domenico  at  Prato,  namely  (i)  the  figures  being  larger 
than  life,  and  thereby  forming  an  example  to  later  artists 
for  giving  true  grandeur  to  large  figures;  and  (2)  certain 
figures  clothed  in  vestments  but  little  used  at  that  time, 
whereby  the  minds  of  other  artists  were  awakened  and 
began  to  depart  from  that  sameness  which  should  rather 
be  called  obsolete  monotony  than  antique  simplicity. 

It  is  noticeable  that  despite  his  bad  character — 
which  is  said  to  have  been  the  cause  of  his  death  by 
poison — all  his  work  was  in  religious  subjects.  He  was 
painting  the  chapel  in  the  Church  of  Our  Lady  at  Spoleto 
when,  in  1469,  he  died. 

Paolo  Uccello,  as  he  was  called,  was  born  at  Flor- 
ence in  1397,  and  died  there  in  1475.  His  real  name  was 
Paolo  di  Dono,  but  he  was  so  fond  of  painting  ani- 
mals and  birds — especially  the  latter — that  he  officially 
signed  himself  as  Paolo  Uccello.  He  devoted  somuch  of 
his  time,  however,  to  the  study  of  perspective,  that  both 
his  life  and  his  work  suffered  thereby.  His  wife  used  to 
relate  that  he  would  stand  the  whole  night  through 
beside  his  writing  table,  and  when  she  entreated  him 
to  come  to  bed,  would  only  say,  "Oh,  what  a  delightful 
thing  is  this  perspective!"  Donatello,  the  sculptor,  is 
said  to  have  told  him  that  in  his  ceaseless  study  of  per- 
spective he  was  leaving  the  substance  for  the  shadow; 
but  Donatello  was  not  a  painter. 

Before  his  time  the  painters  had  not  studied  the 

23 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  earlier  question  of  perspective  scientifically.  Giotto  had  made 

Quattro-  no  attempt  at  it,  and  Masaccio  only  came  nearer  to  realis- 

centists  mg  ft  by  chance.  Brunelleschi,  the  architect,  laid  down 

its  first  principles,  but  it  was  Uccello  who  first  put  these 

principles  into  practice  in  painting,  and  thereby  paved 

the  way  for  his  successors  to  walk  firmly  upon. 

How  he  struggled  with  the  difficulties  of  this  vitally 
important  subject  may  be  seen  in  the  large  battle-piece 
at  the  National  Gallery,  and  however  crude  and  absurd 
this  fine  composition  may  seem  at  first  sight  to  those 
who  are  only  accustomed  to  looking  at  modern  pictures, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  Uccello  is  here  struggling, 
as  it  were,  with  a  savage  monster  which  to  succeeding 
painters  has,  through  his  efforts,  been  a  submissive  slave. 

This  picture  is  one  of  four  panels  executed  for  the 
Bartolini  family.  One  of  the  others  is  in  the  Louvre, 
and  a  third  in  the  Uffizi.  Another — or  indeed  almost 
the  only  other — work  of  Uccello  which  is  now  to  be 
seen  is  the  colossal  painting  in  monochrome  (terra- 
verde)  on  the  wall  of  the  cathedral  at  Florence. 
Strangely  enough,  this  equestrian  portrait  commemo- 
rates an  Englishman,  Sir  John  Hawkwood,  whose 
name  is  Italianised  in  the  inscription  into  Giovanni 
Acuto.  He  was  born  at  Sible  Hedingham  in  Essex, 
the  son  of  a  tanner,  and  adventuring  under  Edward  III. 
into  France,  found  his  way  to  Florence,  where  he 
served  the  State  so  well  that  they  interred  him,  on  his 
death  in  1393,  at  the  public  expense,  and  subsequently 
commissioned  Uccello  to  execute  his  monument. 

With  all  his  devotion  to  science,  the  artist  has  com- 
mitted the  strange  mistake  of  making  the  horse  stand 
on  two  legs  on  the  same  side,  the  other  two  being  lifted. 

To  Masaccio,  born  in  or  about  1400,  and  dying  in 
1443,  we  owe  a  great  step  in  art  towards  realism.  It  was 

24 


Tuscan  Schools 

he,  says  Vasari,  who  first  attained  the  clear  perception  The  earlier 
that  painting  is  only  the  close  imitation,  by  drawing  and  Quattro- 
colouring  simply,  of  all  the  forms  presented  by  nature  centists 
showing  them  as  they  are  produced  by  her,  and  that 
whoever  shall  most  perfectly  effect  this  may  be  said  to 
have  most  nearly  approached  the  summit  of  excellence. 
The  conviction  of  this  truth,  he  adds,  was  the  cause  of 
Masaccio's  attaining  so  much  knowledge  by  means  of 
perpetual  study  that  he  may  be  accounted  among  the 
first  by  whom  art  was  in  a  measure  delivered  from  rude- 
ness and  hardness;  it  was  he  who  led  the  way  to  the 
realisation  of  beautiful  attitudes  and  movements  which 
were  never  exhibited  by  any  painter  before  his  day,  while 
he  also  imparted  a  life  and  force  to  his  figures,  with  a 
certain  roundness  and  relief  which  render  them  truly 
characteristic  and  natural.  Possessing  great  correctness 
of  judgment,  Masaccio  perceived  that  all  figures  not 
sufficiently  foreshortened  to  appear  standing  firmly  on 
the  plane  whereon  they  are  placed,  but  reared  up  on  the 
points  of  their  feet,  must  needs  be  deprived  of  all  grace 
and  excellence  in  the  most  important  essentials.  It  is 
true  that  Uccello,  in  his  studies  of  perspective,  had 
helped  to  lessen  this  difficulty,  but  Masaccio  managed 
his  foreshortenings  with  much  greater  skill  (though 
doubtless  with  less  science)  and  succeeded  better  than 
any  artist  before  him.  Moreover,  he  imparted  extreme 
softness  and  harmony  to  his  paintings,  and  was  careful 
to  have  the  carnations  of  the  heads  and  other  nude  parts 
in  accordance  with  the  colours  of  the  draperies,  which 
he  represented  with  few  and  simple  folds  as  they  are 
seen  in  real  life. 

Masaccio's  principal  remaining  works  are  his  fres- 
coes in  the  famous  Branacci  Chapel  at  the  Carmine 
convent  in  Florence.  The  work  of  decorating  the  chapel 

25 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  earlier  was  begun  by  Masolino,  but  finished  by  Masaccio  and 
Quattro-  Filippo  Lippi.  Vasari  states  it  as  a  fact  that  all  the  most 
centists  celebrated  sculptors  and  painters  had  become  excellent 
and  illustrious  by  studying  Masaccio's  work  in  this 
chapel,  and  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  Michel- 
angelo and  Raphael  profited  by  their  studies  there, 
without  mentioning  all  the  names  enumerated  by 
Vasari.  Seeing  how  important  the  influence  of  Masaccio 
was  destined  to  become,  I  have  ventured  to  italicise 
Vasari's  opinions  on  the  causes  which  operated  in  creat- 
ing the  Florentine  style  and  in  raising  the  art  of  paint- 
ing to  heights  undreamt  of  by  its  earliest  pioneers. 


IV 

THE  LATER  QUATTROCENTISTS 

Three  names  stand  out  conspicuously  from  the  ranks 
of  Florentine  painters  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  But  progress  being  one  of  the  essential  char- 
acteristics of  the  art  at  this  period,  as  in  all  others,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  the  order  of  their  fame  coincides 
(inversely)  pretty  nearly  with  that  of  their  date.  First, 
Antonio  Pollaiuolo;  second,  Sandro  Botticelli; 
and  lastly,  Leonardo  da  Vinci. 

It  is  important  to  note  that  Pollaiuolo  was  first 
apprenticed  to  a  goldsmith,  and  attained  such  profici- 
ency in  that  craft  that  he  was  employed  by  Lorenzo 
Ghiberti  in  the  carving  of  the  gates  of  the  Baptistry, 
and  subsequently  set  up  a  workshop  for  himself.  In 
competition  with  Finiguerra  he  "executed  various 
stories,"  says  Vasari,  "wherein  he  fully  equalled  his 
competitor  in  careful  execution,  while  he  surpassed  him 
in  beauty  of  design.  The  guild  of  merchants,  being  con- 

26 


PLATE   II.— SANDRO   BOTTICELLI  (?) 
THE  VIRGIN   AND   CHILD 

National  Gallery,  London 


Tuscan  Schools 

vinced  of  his  ability,  resolved  to  employ  him  to  execute  The  later 
certain  stories  in  silver  for  the  altar  of  San  Giovanni,  Quattro- 
and  he  performed  them  so  excellently  that  they  were  centtsts 
acknowledged  to  be  the  best  of  all  those  previously  exe- 
cuted by  various  masters.  ...  In  other  churches  also  in 
Florence  and  Rome,  and  other  parts  of  Italy,  his  mira- 
culous enamels  are  to  be  seen." 

Now  whether  or  not  Antonio,  like  others,  continued 
to  exercise  this  craft,  the  account  given  by  Vasari,  as 
follows,  of  his  learning  to  paint  is  extremely  significant 
as  showing  how  painting  was  regarded  in  relation  to 
the  kindred  arts  so  widely  practised  in  Florence: — 
"Eventually,  considering  that  this  craft  did  not  secure 
a  long  life  to  the  work  of  its  masters,  Antonio,  desiring 
for  his  labours  a  more  enduring  memory,  resolved  to 
devote  himself  to  it  no  longer ;  and  his  brother  Piero 
being  a  painter,  he  joined  himself  to  him  for  the  pur- 
pose of  learning  the  modes  of  proceeding  in  painting. 
He  then  found  this  to  be  an  art  so  different  from  that  of 
the  goldsmith  that  he  wished  he  had  never  addressed 
himself  to  it.  But  being  impelled  by  shame  rather  than 
any  advantage  to  be  obtained,  he  acquired  a  knowledge 
of  the  processes  used  in  painting  in  the  course  of  a 
few  months,  and  became  an  excellent  master." 

As  early  as  1460  he  had  painted  the  three  large  can- 
vases of  Hercules  for  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  now  no  longer 
existing,  but  probably  reflected  in  the  two  small  panels 
of  the  same  subject  in  the  Uffizi.  These  alone  are 
enough  to  mark  him  as  one  of  the  greatest  artists  of  his 
time.  The  magnificent  David,  at  Berlin,  soon  followed, 
and  the  little  Daphne  and  Apollo  in  our  National  Gal- 
lery. These  were  all  accomplished  unaided,  but  a  little 
later  he  worked  in  concert  with  his  brother  Piero, 
to  whom  we  are  told  to  attribute  parts  of  the  paint- 

27 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  later  ing  of  the  large  S.  Sebastian  in  the  National  Gallery, 
Qjmttro-  painted  in  1475  for  Antonio  Pucci,  from  whose  descend- 
centists  ant  it  Was  purchased.  "For  the  chapel  of  the  Pucci  in 
the  church  of  San  Sebastian,"  says  Vasari,  "Antonio 
painted  the  altar-piece — a  remarkable  and  wonder- 
fully executed  work  with  numerous  horses,  many  nude 
figures,  and  singularly  beautiful  foreshortenings.  Also 
the  portrait  of  S.  Sebastian  taken  from  life,  that  is  to 
say,  from  Gino  di  Ludovico  Capponi.  This  picture  has 
been  more  extolled  than  any  by  Antonio.  He  has  evi- 
dently copied  nature  to  the  utmost  of  his  power,  as  we 
see  more  especially  in  one  of  the  archers,  who,  bending 
towards  the  ground,  and  resting  his  bow  against  his 
breast,  is  employing  all  his  force  to  prepare  it  for  action; 
the  veins  are  swelling,  the  muscles  strained,  and  the 
man  holds  his  breath  as  he  applies  all  his  strength  to 
the  effort.  All  the  other  figures  in  the  diversity  of  their 
attitudes  clearly  prove  the  artist's  ability  and  the  labour 
he  has  bestowed  on  the  work." 

It  is  in  his  superb  rendering  of  the  figure,  especially 
in  the  nude,  that  Antonio  Pollaiuolo  marks  a  decisive 
step  in  the  progress  of  painting,  and  is  entitled  to  be 
regarded  as  "the  first  modern  artist  to  master  expres- 
sion of  the  human  form,  its  spirit,  and  its  action."  But 
for  him  we  should  miss  much  of  the  strength  and  vigour 
that  distinguishes  the  real  from  the  false  Botticelli. 

"In  the  same  time  with  the  illustrious  Lorenzo  de 
Medici,  the  elder,"  Vasari  writes,  "  which  was  truly  an 
age  of  gold  for  men  of  talent,  there  flourished  a  certain 
Alessandro,  called  after  our  custom  Sandro,  and  further 
named  di  Botticello,  for  a  reason  which  we  shall  pre- 
sently see.  His  father,  Mariano  Filipepi,  a  Florentine 
citizen,  brought  him  up  with  care;  but  although  the 
boy  readily  acquired  whatever  he  had  a  mind  to  learn, 

28 


PLATE  III.— SANDRO  BOTTICELLI 

PORTRAIT  OF  A   YOUNG  MAN 

National  Gallery,  London 


___ 


Tuscan  Schools 

yet  he  was  always  discontented,  nor  would  he  take  any  The  later 
pleasure  in  reading,  writing,  or  accounts ;  so  that  his  Quattro- 
father  turned  him  over  in  despair  to  a  friend  of  his  called  centists 
Botticello,  who  was  a  goldsmith. 

"There  was  at  that  time  a  close  connection  and 
almost  constant  intercourse  between  the  goldsmiths 
and  the  painters,  wherefore Sandro,  who  had  remarkable 
talent  and  was  strongly  disposed  to  the  arts  of  design, 
became  enamoured  of  painting  and  resolved  to  devote 
himself  entirely  to  that  vocation.  He  acknowledged 
his  purpose  forthwith  to  his  father,  who  accordingly 
took  him  to  Fra  Filippo.  Devoting  himself  entirely  to 
the  vocation  he  had  chosen,  Sandro  so  closely  followed 
the  directions  and  imitated  the  manner  of  his  master, 
that  Filippo  conceived  a  great  love  for  him,  and  in- 
structed him  so  effectually  that  Sandro  rapidly  attained 
a  degree  in  art  that  none  could  have  predicted  for  him." 

The  influence  of  the  Giottesque  tradition  which  was 
thus  handed  on  to  the  youthful  Botticelli  by  Filippo 
Lippi  is  traceable  in  the  beautiful  little  Adoration  of 
the  Magi — the  oblong,  not  the  tondo — in  the  National 
Gallery  (No.  592).  This  was  formerly  attributed  to 
Filippino  Lippi,  but  is  now  universally  recognised  as 
one  of  Sandro's  very  earliest  productions,  when  still 
under  the  immediate  influence  of  Filippo,  and  prior  to 
the  Fortitude,  painted  before  1470,  which  is  now  in  the 
Uffizi,  and  is  the  first  picture  mentioned  by  Vasari,  thus 
— "While  still  a  youth  he  painted  the  figure  of  Forti- 
tude among  those  pictures  of  the  virtues  which  Antonio 
and  PietroPollaiuolo  were  executing  in  theMercatanzia 
or  Tribunal  of  Commerce  in  Florence.  In  Santo  Spirito 
(Vasari  continues,  naming  a  picture  which  is  probably 
The  Virgin  Enthroned,  now  at  Berlin  (No.  106)),  he 
painted  a  picture  for  the  Bardi  family;  this  work  he 

29 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  later  executed  with  great  diligence,  and  finished  it  very  suc- 
Qjiattro-  cessfully,  depicting  the  olive  and  palm  trees  with  extra- 
centists  ordinary  care." 

The  influence  of  Pollaiuolo  is  more  evident  in  his 

two  next  productions,  the  two  small  panels  of  Holo- 

f ernes  and  the  Portrait  of  a  Man  with  a  Medal,  in  the 

Uffizi,  and  again  in  the  5.  Sebastian  now  at  Berlin, 

which  was  painted  in  1473. 

About  1476  the  second  Adoration  of  the  Magi  in 
the  National  Gallery  was  painted,  and  a  year  or  two 
later  the  famous  and  more  splendid  picture  of  the  same 
subject  which  is  in  the  Uffizi.  With  this  he  established 
his  reputation,  showing  himself  unmistakably  as  an 
artist  of  profound  feeling  and  noble  character  besides 
being  a  skilful  painter.  It  was  commissioned  for  the 
church  of  Santa  Maria  Novella.  "In  the  face  of  the 
oldest  of  the  kings,"  says  Vasari,  "there  is  the  most 
lively  expression  of  tenderness  as  he  kisses  the  foot  of 
the  Saviour,  and  of  satisfaction  at  the  attainment  of  the 
purpose  for  which  he  had  undertaken  his  long  journey. 
This  figure  is  the  portrait  of  Cosimo  de'  Medici,  the  most 
faithful  and  animated  likeness  of  all  now  known  of  him. 
The  second  of  the  kings  is  the  portrait  of  Giuliano  de' 
Medici,  father  of  Pope  Clement  VII.,  and  he  is  present- 
ing his  gift  with  an  expression  of  the  most  devout  sin- 
cerity. The  third,  who  is  likewise  kneeling,  seems  to 
be  offering  thanksgiving  as  well  as  adoration ;  this  is 
the  likeness  of  Giovanni,  the  son  of  Cosimo. 

"The  beauty  which  Sandro  has  imparted  to  these 
heads  cannot  be  adequately  described;  all  the  figures  are 
in  different  attitudes,  some  seen  full  face,  others  in  pro- 
file, some  almost  entirely  turned  away,  others  bent 
down ;  and  to  all  the  artist  has  given  an  appropriate  ex- 
pression, whether  old  or  young,  showing  numerous 

30 


Tuscan  Schools 

pecularities,  which  prove  the  mastery  he  possessed  over  The  later 
his  art.  He  has  even  distinguished  the  followers  of  each  Quattro- 
king,  so  that  one  can  see  which  belong  to  one  and  which  centuts 
to  another.  It  is  indeed  a  most  wonderful  work;  the 
composition,  the  colouring,  and  the  design  are  so  beauti- 
ful that  every  artist  to-day  is  amazed  at  it,  and  at  the 
time  it  acquired  so  great  a  fame  for  Sandro  that  Pope 
Sixtus  IV.  appointed  him  superintendent  of  thepainting 
of  the  chapel  he  had  built  in  Rome." 

The  visit  to  Rome  was  in  1481,  and  meantime  Botti- 
celli had  produced  the  wayward  Primavera,  and  the 
more  stern  and  harsh  S.  Augustine  in  the  church  of 
Ognissanti.  Of  his  frescoes  in  the  Pope's  chapel  nearly 
all  have  survived,  including  Moses  slaying  the  Egyp- 
tian, The  Temptation,  and  The  Destruction  of  KoraWs 
Company,  besides  such  of  the  heads  of  the  Popes  as 
were  not  painted  by  Domenico  Ghirlandaio  and  his 
other  assistants  in  the  work. 

Returning  to  Florence  in  1482,  he  was  for  twenty 
years  without  a  rival  in  the  city — after  the  departure  of 
Leonardo  to  Milan — and  he  appears  to  have  been  sub- 
jected to  no  new  influences,  but  steadily  to  have  de- 
veloped the  immense  forces  within  him.  Before  1492 
may  be  dated  the  two  examples  in  the  National  Gallery, 
the  Portrait  of  a  Youth  and  the  fascinating  Mars  and 
Venus,  which  was  probably  intended  as  a  decoration  for 
some  large  piece  of  furniture.  The  beautiful  and  extra- 
ordinarily life-like  frescoes  in  the  Louvre  (the  only  re- 
cognised works  of  the  master  in  that  Gallery)  from  the 
Villa  Lemmi,  representing  Giovanna  Tornabuoni  with 
Venus  and  the  Graces,  and  Lorenzo  Tornabuoni  with 
the  Liberal  Arts,  are  assigned  to  i486.  Of  this  period 
are  also  the  more  familiar  Birth  of  Venus',  The  Tondo 
of  the  Pomegranate  and  the  Annunciation  in  the  Uffizi, 

31 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  later  and  the  San  Marco  altar-piece,  the  Coronation  of  the 

Quattro-  Virgin  in  the  Florence  Academy. 
centists  To  the  influence  of  Savonarola,  however  great  or  little 
that  may  have  been,  is  attributed  the  seriousness  of  his 
latest  work.  Professor  Muther  characterises  Botticelli 
as  "  the  Jeremiah  of  the  Renaissance,"  but  whether  or 
not  this  is  a  rhetorical  overstatement,  the  ''tendency 
to  impassioned  and  feverish  action,  so  evident  in  the 
famous  Calumny  of  Aftelles,  reflects,  no  doubt,  the 
agitation  of  his  spiritual  stress." 1 

This  is  the  latest  of  Sandro's  works  which  are  in 
public  galleries,  and  there  is  every  probability  that  the 
last  years  of  his  life  were  not  very  productive.  "This 
master  is  said  to  have  had  an  extraordinary  love  for 
those  whom  he  knew  to  be  zealous  students  in  art," 
Vasari  tells  us,  "and  is  affirmed  to  have  gained  consider- 
able sums  of  money,  but  being  a  bad  manager  and  very 
careless,  all  came  to  nothing.  Finally,  having  become 
old,  unfit  for  work,  and  helpless,  he  was  obliged  to 
go  on  crutches,  being  unable  to  stand  upright,  and  so 
died,  after  long  illness  and  decrepitude,  in  his  seventy- 
eighth  year.  He  was  buried  at  Florence,  in  the  church 
of  Ognissanti  in  the  year  15 10." 

The  large  and  beautiful  Assumption  of  the  Virginy 
with  the  circles  of  saints  and  angels,  in  the  National 
Gallery,  which  has  only  of  late  years  been  taken  out 
of  the  catalogue  of  Botticelli's  works,  is  now  said 
to  have  been  executed  by  his  early  pupil  Francesco 
Botticini  (c.  1 446- 1 497)  in  1470  or  thereabouts.  "In 
the  church  of  San  Pietro,"  Vasari  writes  of  Botticelli, 
"he  executed  a  picture  for  Matteo  Palmieri,  with  a  very 
large  number  of  figures.  The  subject  is  the  Assumption 
of  our  Lady,  and  the  zones  or  circles  of  heaven  are 

1  National  Gallery  Catalogue. 
32 


PLATE   IV.— SANDRO  BOTTICELLI 
THE  NATIVITY 

National  Gallery,  London 


Tuscan  Schools 

there  painted  in  their  order.  The  patriarchs,  prophets,  The  later 
apostles,  evangelists,  martyrs,  confessors,  doctors,  Quattro- 
virgins,  and  the  hierarchies;  all  of  which  was  executed  dentists 
by  Sandro  according  to  the  design  furnished  to  him  by 
Matteo,  who  was  a  very  learned  and  able  man.  The 
whole  work  was  conducted  and  finished  with  the  most 
wonderful  skill  and  care;  at  the  foot  were  the  portraits 
of  Matteo  and  his  wife  kneeling.  But  although  this 
picture  is  exceedingly  beautiful,  and  ought  to  have  put 
envy  to  shame,  yet  there  were  certain  malevolent  and 
censorious  persons  who,  not  being  able  to  fix  any  other 
blame  upon  it,  declared  that  Matteo  and  Sandro  had 
fallen  into  grievous  heresy."  It  is  apparent  that  the  pic- 
ture has  suffered  intentional  injury,  and  it  is  known  that 
in  consequence  of  this  supposed  heresy  the  altar  which 
it  adorned  was  interdicted  and  the  picture  covered  up. 
In  view  of  all  the  circumstances  it  is  certain  that  it 
was  designed  by  Botticelli,  and  very  possibly  executed 
under  his  immediate  supervision  and  with  some  assist- 
ance from  him.  If  we  do  not  see  the  real  Botticelli  in  it, 
we  see  his  influence  and  his  power  far  more  clearly  than 
in  the  numerous  tondi  of  Madonna  and  Child  that  have 
been  assigned  to  him  in  less  critical  ages  than  our  own. 
For  the  real  Botticelli  was  something  very  real  indeed, 
and  though  it  was  easy  enough  to  imitate  his  manner- 
isms, neither  the  style  nor  the  spirit  of  his  work  were 
ever  within  reach  of  his  closest  followers. 


V 

LEONARDO  DA  VINCI 

Twelve  years  younger  than  Botticelli  was  Leonardo 
da  Vinci  (1452- 1520),  whose  career  as  a  painter  com- 
c  33 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Leonardo  menced  in  the  workshop  of  Andrea  Verrocchio,  gold- 
da  Vinci  smith,  painter,  and  sculptor.  That  so  extraordinary  a 
genius  should  have  fixed  upon  painting  for  his  means 
of  expression  rather  than  any  of  his  other  natural  gifts 
is  the  most  telling  evidence  of  the  pre-eminence  earned 
for  that  art  by  the  efforts  of  those  whose  works  we  have 
been  considering.  For  once  we  may  go  all  the  way  with 
Vasari,  and  accept  his  estimate  of  him  as  even  moderate 
in  comparison  with  those  of  modern  writers.  "The  rich- 
est gifts,"  he  writes,  "are  sometimes  showered,  as  by 
celestial  influence,  on  human  creatures,  and  we  see 
beauty,  grace,  and  talent  so  united  in  a  single  person 
that  whatever  the  man  thus  favoured  may  turn  to,  his 
every  action  is  so  divine  as  to  leave  all  other  men  far 
behind  him,  and  to  prove  that  he  has  been  specially  en- 
dowed by  the  hand  of  God  himself,  and  has  not  obtained 
his  pre-eminence  by  human  teaching.  This  was  seen 
and  acknowledged  by  all  men  in  the  case  of  Leonardo 
da  Vinci,  in  whom,  to  say  nothing  of  the  beauty  of  his 
person,  which  was  such  that  it  could  never  be  suffi- 
ciently extolled,  there  was  a  grace  beyond  expression 
which  was  manifested  without  thought  or  effort  in  every 
act  and  deed,  and  who  besides  had  so  rare  a  gift  of  talent 
and  ability  that  to  whatever  subject  he  turned,  however 
difficult,  he  presently  made  himself  absolute  master  of 
it.  Extraordinary  strength  was  in  him  joined  with  re- 
markable facility,  a  mind  of  regal  boldness  and  mag- 
nanimous daring.  His  gifts  were  such  that  his  fame 
extended  far  and  wide,  and  he  was  held  in  the  highest 
estimation  not  in  his  own  time  only,  but  also  and  even 
to  a  greater  extent  after  his  death ;  and  this  will  continue 
to  be  in  all  succeeding  ages.  Truly  wonderful  indeed 
and  divinely  gifted  was  Leonardo." 

To  his  activities  in  directions  other  than  painting, 

34 


Tuscan  Schools 

I  need  not  allude  except  to  say  that  they  account  in  a  Leonardo 
great  measure  for  the  scarcity  of  the  pictures  he  has  left  da  Vinci 
us,  and  to  emphasise  the  significance  of  his  having 
painted  at  all.  To  a  man  of  such  supreme  genius  the 
circumstances  in  which  he  found  himself,  rather  than 
any  particular  technical  facility,  determined  the  course 
of  his  career,  and  in  another  age  and  another  country  he 
might  have  been  a  Pheidias  or  a  Newton*  a  Shakspeare 
or  a  Beethoven. 

But  if  the  pictures  he  has  left  us  are  few  in  number 
— according  to  the  present  estimate  not  more  than  a 
dozen — they  are  altogether  greater  than  anything  else 
in  the  realm  of  painting,  and  with  their  marvellous 
beauty  and  sublety  have  probably  had  a  wider  influence, 
both  on  painters  and  on  lovers  of  painting,  than  those 
of  any  other  master.  They  seem  to  be  endowed  with  a 
spirit  of  something  beyond  painting  itself,  and  in  the 
presence  of  The  Last  Supper  or  the  Mona  Lisa  the 
babble  of  conflicting  opinions  on  questions  of  style, 
technique,  and  what  not  is  silenced. 

Similarly,  in  writing  of  Leonardo's  pictures,  every- 
one of  which  is  a  masterpiece,  it  seems  superfluous  to 
say  even  a  word  about  what  the  whole  world  already 
knows  so  well.  All  that  can  be  usefully  added  is  a  little 
of  the  tradition,  where  it  is  sufficiently  authenticated, 
relating  to  the  circumstances  under  which  they  came 
into  existence,  and  such  of  the  circumstances  of  his  life 
as  concern  their  production. 

When  still  quite  a  youth  Leonardo  was  apprenticed 
to  Andrea  Verrocchio,  and  the  story  goes  that  it  was  the 
marvellous  painting  of  the  angel,  by  the  pupil,  in  the 
master's  Baptism  in  the  Academy  at  Florence,  that 
induced  Verrocchio  to  abandon  painting  and  devote 
himself  entirely  to  sculpture.  This  angel  has  been  attri- 

35 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Leonardo  buted  to  the  hand  of  Leonardo  from  the  earliest  times, 
da  Vinci  but  can  hardly  be  taken,  at  anyrate  in  its  present  condi- 
tion, as  a  decided  proof  of  the  genius  that  was  to  be  dis- 
played in  manhood.  More  certain  are  the  S.  Jerome  in 
the  Vatican,  and  the  Adoration  of  the  Kings  in  the 
Uffizi,  though  neither  is  carried  beyond  the  earlier 
stages  of  "under-painting."  A  few  finished  portraits 
are  now  assigned  with  tolerable  certainty  to  his  earlier 
years;  but  for  his  famous  masterpieces  we  must  jump  to 
the  year  1482,  when  he  left  Florence  and  went  to  Milan, 
where  for  the  next  sixteen  years  he  was  intermittently 
engaged  in  the  execution  of  the  great  equestrian  statue, 
which  was  destroyed  by  the  French  mercenaries  before 
it  was  actually  completed. 

It  appears  that  he  was  recommended  by  Lorenzo  de' 
Medici  to  Lodovico  il  Moro,  Duke  of  Milan,  probably 
for  the  very  purpose  of  executing  this  statue.  However 
that  may  be,  it  is  now  certain  that  in  1483  he  was  com- 
missioned by  the  Franciscan  monks  to  paint  a  picture 
of  the  Virgin  and  Child  for  their  church  of  the  Concep- 
tion, and  that  between  1491  and  1494  Leonardo  and 
his  assistant,  Ambrogio  di  Predis,  petitioned  the  Duke 
for  an  arbitration  as  to  price.  This  was  the  famous 
Virgin  of  the  Rocks,  now  in  the  Louvre,  and  the  similar, 
and  though  not  precisely  identical,  composition  in  our 
National  Gallery  is  generally  supposed  to  be  a  replica, 
painted  by  Ambrogio  under  the  supervision  of,  and 
possibly  with  some  assistance  from,  Leonardo  himself. 

Between  1495  and  1498  Leonardo  was  engaged 
on  the  painting  of  The  Last  Supper.  In  the  Forster 
Library  at  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  is  a  note- 
book which  contains  his  first  memoranda  for  the 
wonderful  design  of  this  masterpiece.  At  Windsor  are 
studies  for  the  heads  of  S.  Matthew,  S.  Philip,  and 

36 


PLATE  V.— LEONARDO  DA  VINCI 
THE  VIRGIN   OF  THE  ROCKS 

National  Gallery,  London 


Tuscan  Schools 

Judas,  and  for  the  right  arm  of  S.  Peter.  That  of  the  head  Leonardo 
of  the  Christ  in  the  Brera  at  Milan  has  been  so  much  da  Vinci 
"restored"  that  it  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  Leonardo's 
work.  Vasari's  account  of  the  delays  in  the  completion 
of  the  painting  is  better  known,  and  probably  less  trust- 
worthy, than  one  or  two  notices  of  about  the  same  date, 
quoted  by  Mr  H.  P.  Home,  in  translating  and  comment- 
ing on  Vasari.  In  June  1497,  when  the  work  had  been 
in  progress  over  two  years,  Duke  Lodovico  wrote  to 
his  secretary  "to  urge  Leonardo,  the  Florentine,  to 
finish  the  work  of  the  Refectory  which  he  has  begun, 
.  .  .  and  that  articles  subscribed  by  his  hand  shall  be 
executed  which  shall  oblige  him  to  finish  the  work 
within  the  time  that  shall  be  agreed  upon."  Matteo 
Bandello,in  the  prologue  to  one  of  his  Navelle,  describes 
how  he  saw  him  actually  at  work — "Leonardo,  as  I 
have  more  than  once  seen  and  observed  him,  used  often 
to  go  early  in  the  morning  and  mount  the  scaffolding 
(for  The  Last  Supper  is  somewhat  raised  above  the 
ground),  and  from  morning  till  dusk  never  lay  the  brush 
out  of  his  hand,  but,  oblivious  of  both  eating  and  drink- 
ing, paint  without  ceasing.  After  that,  he  would  remain 
two,  three,  or  four  days  without  touching  it:  yet  he 
always  stayed  there,  sometimes  for  one  or  two  hours, 
and  only  contemplated,  considered,  and  criticised,  as 
he  examined  with  himself  the  figures  he  had  made." 

Vasari's  story  of  the  Prior's  head  serving  for  that  of 
Judas  is  related  with  less  colour,  but  probably  more 
truth,  in  the  Discourses  of  G.  B.  Giraldi,  who  says  that 
when  Leonardo  had  finished  the  painting  with  the 
exception  of  the  head  of  Judas,  the  friars  complained  to 
the  Duke  that  he  had  left  it  in  this  state  for  more  than 
a  year.  Leonardo  replied  that  for  more  than  a  year  he 
had  gone  every  morning  and  eveninginto  theBorghetto, 

37 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Leonardo  where  all  the  worst  sort  of  people  lived,  yet  he  could 
da  Vinci  never  find  a  head  sufficiently  evil  to  serve  for  the  like- 
ness of  Judas:  but  he  added,  "If  perchance  I  shall  not 
find  one,  I  will  put  there  the  head  of  this  Father  Prior 
who  is  now  so  troublesome  to  me,  which  will  become 
him  mightily." 

In  1500  Leonardo  was  back  again  in  Florence,  and 
his  next  important  work  was  the  designing,  though 
probably  not  the  actual  painting,  of  the  beautiful  picture 
in  the  Louvre,  The  Virgin  and  Child  with  S.  Anne, 
the  commission  for  which  had  been  given  to  Filippino 
Lippi,  but  resigned  by  him  on  Leonardo's  return.  In 
1 50 1  Isabella  d'Este  wrote  to  know  whether  Leonardo 
was  still  in  Florence,  and  what  he  was  doing,  as  she 
wished  him  to  paint  a  picture  for  her  in  the  palace  at 
Mantua,  and  in  the  reply  of  the  Vicar-General  of  the 
Carmelites  we  have  a  valuable  account  of  the  artist  and 
his  work.  "As  far  as  I  can  gather,"  he  writes,  "the  life 
of  Leonardo  is  extremely  variable  and  undetermined. 
Since  his  arrival  here  he  has  only  made  a  sketch  in  a 
cartoon.  It  represents  a  Christ  as  a  little  child  of  about 
a  year  old,  reaching  forward  out  of  his  mother's  arms 
towards  a  lamb.  The  mother,  half  rising  from  the  lap 
of  S.  Anne,  catches  at  the  child  as  though  to  take  it 
away  from  the  lamb,  the  animal  of  sacrifice  signifying 
the  Passion.  S.  Anne,  also  rising  a  little  from  her  seat, 
seems  to  wish  to  restrain  her  daughter  from  separating 
the  child  from  the  lamb;  which  perhaps  is  intended  to 
signify  theChurch,  that  would  not  wish  that  the  Passion 
of  Christ  should  be  hindered.  These  figures  are  as 
large  as  life,  but  they  are  all  contained  in  a  small  cartoon, 
since  all  of  them  sit  or  are  bent;  the  figure  of  the  Virgin 
is  somewhat  in  front  of  the  other,  turned  towards  the 
left.  This  sketch  is  not  yet  finished.  He  has  not  executed 

38 


Tuscan  Schools 

any  other  work,  except  that  his  two  assistants  paint  Leonardo 
portraits  and  he,  at  times,  lends  a  hand  to  one  or  another  da  Vinci 
of  them.  He  gives  profound  study  to  geometry,  and 
grows  most  impatient  of  painting." 

The  history  of  this  cartoon — as  indeed  of  the  Louvre 
picture — is  somewhat  obscure,  but  it  is  certain  that  the 
beautiful  cartoon  of  the  same  subject  in  the  possession 
of  the  Royal  Academy  is  not  the  one  above  described. 

Lastly,  there  is  the  famous — or,  may  we  say,  now 
more  famous  than  ever — portrait  oiMona  Lisa.  "Who- 
ever wishes  to  know  how  far  art  can  imitate  nature," 
Vasari  writes,  "may  do  so  in  this  head,  wherein  every 
detail  that  could  be  depicted  by  the  brush  has  been 
faithfully  reproduced.  The  eyes  have  the  lustrous 
brightness  and  watery  sheen  that  is  seen  in  life,  and 
around  them  are  all  those  rosy  and  pearly  tints  which, 
like  the  eyelashes  too,  can  only  be  rendered  by  means 
of  the  deepest  subtlety ;  the  eyebrows  also  are  painted 
with  the  closest  exactitude,  where  fuller  and  where  more 
thinly  set,  in  a  manner  that  could  not  be  more  natural. 
The  nose,  with  its  beautiful  and  delicately  roseate 
nostrils,  seems  to  be  alive.  The  mouth,  wonderful  in  its 
outline,  shows  the  lips  perfectly  uniting  the  rose  tints 
of  their  colour  with  that  of  the  face,  and  the  carnation 
of  the  cheek  appears  rather  to  be  flesh  and  blood  than 
only  painted.  Looking  at  the  pit  of  the  throat  one  can 
hardly  believe  that  one  cannot  see  the  beating  of  the 
pulse,  and  in  truth  it  may  be  said  that  the  whole  work 
is  painted  in  a  manner  well  calculated  to  make  the 
boldest  master  tremble. 

"  Mona  Lisa  was  exceedingly  beautiful,  and  while 
Leonardo  was  painting  her  portrait  he  kept  someone 
constantly  near  her  to  sing  or  play,  to  jest  or  otherwise 
amuse  her,  so  that  she  might  continue  cheerful,  and 

39 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Leonardo  keep  away  the  melancholy  that  painters  are  apt  to  give 

da  Vinci  to  their  portraits.  In  this  picture  there  is  a  smile  so 

pleasing  that  the  sight  of  it  is  a  thing  that  appears  more 

divine  than  human,  and  it  has  ever  been  considered  a 

marvel  that  it  is  not  actually  alive." 

It  is  worth  observing  that  while  these  rapturous 
expressions  of  wonder  at  the  lifelike  qualities  of  the 
portrait  may  seem  somewhat  tame  and  childish  in  com- 
parison with  the  appreciation  accorded  to  Leonardo's 
work  in  these  times — notably  that  of  Walter  Pater  in 
this  case — they  are  in  reality  at  the  root  of  all  criticism. 
If  Vasari,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  pitches  upon 
this  quality  of  lifelikeness  and  direct  imitation  of  nature 
for  his  particular  admiration,  it  is  only  because  the 
first  and  foremost  object  of  the  earlier  painters  was  in 
fact  to  represent  the  life;  and  though  in  the  rarefied 
atmosphere  of  modern  talk  about  art  these  naive 
criticisms  may  seem  out  of  date,  it  is  significant  that 
between  Vasari  and  ourselves  there  is  little,  if  any, 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  which  masters  were  the  great 
ones,  and  which  were  not.  "Truly  divine"  is  a  phrase 
in  which  he  sums  up  the  impressions  created  in  his 
mind  by  the  less  material  qualities  of  some  of  the 
greatest,  but  before  even  the  greatest  could  create  such 
an  impression  they  must  have  learnt  the  rudiments  of 
the  art  in  the  school  of  nature. 


VI 

MICHELANGELO  BUONARROTI 

In  the  opening  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  art 
of  painting  had  attained  such  a  pitch  of  excellence  that 
unless  carried  onward  by  a  supreme  genius  it  could 

40 


Tuscan  Schools 

hardly  hope  to  escape  from  the  common  lot  of  all  things  Mkhel- 
in  nature,  and  begin  to  decline.    After  Botticelli  zxidangelo 
Leonardo,  the  works  of  Andrea  del  Sarto,  "the  perfect  Buonarroti 
painter"  as  he  has  been  called,  fall  rather  flat;  and  no 
less  a  prodigy  than  Michelangelo  was  capable  of  excel- 
ling his  marvellous  predecessors,  or  than  Raphael  of 
rivalling  them. 

Vasari  prefaces  his  life  to  Andrea  del  Sarto  (1486- 
1531)  with  something  more  definite  than  his  usual 
rhetorical  flourishes.  "At  length  we  have  come,"  he  says, 
"after  having  written  the  lives  of  many  artists  distin- 
guished for  colour,  for  design,  or  for  invention,  to  that 
of  the  truly  excellent  Andrea  del  Sarto,  in  whom  art  and 
nature  combined  to  show  all  that  may  be  done  in  paint- 
ing when  design,  colouring,  and  invention  unite  in  one 
and  the  same  person.  Had  he  possessed  a  somewhat 
bolder  and  more  elevated  mind,  had  he  been  distin- 
guished for  higher  qualifications  as  he  was  for  genius 
and  depth  of  judgment  in  the  art  he  practised,  he  would 
beyond  all  doubt  have  been  without  an  equal.  But  there 
was  in  his  nature  a  certain  timidity  of  mind,  a  sort  of 
diffidence  and  want  of  strength,  which  prevented  those 
evidences  of  ardour  and  animation  which  are  proper  to 
the  highest  characters  from  ever  appearing  in  himwhich, 
could  they  have  been  added  to  his  natural  advantages, 
would  have  made  him  truly  a  divine  painter,  so  that  his 
works  are  wanting  in  that  grandeur,  richness,  and  force 
which  are  so  conspicuous  in  those  of  many  other  masters. 

"His  figures  are  well  drawn,  and  entirely  free  from 
errors,  and  perfect  in  all  their  proportions,  and  for  the 
most  part  are  simple  and  chaste.  His  airs  of  heads  are 
natural  and  graceful  in  women  and  children,  while  both 
in  youth  and  old  men  they  are  full  of  life  and  animation. 
His  draperies  are  marvellously  beautiful.  His  nudes  are 

41 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Michel-  admirably  executed,  simple  in  drawing,  exquisite  in 
angelo  colouring — nay,  they  are  truly  divine." 
Buonarroti        And  yet?  Well,  let  us  turn  to  Michelangelo. 

"While  the  best  and  most  industrious  artists,"  says 
Vasari,  "were  labouring  by  the  light  of  Giotto  and  his 
followers  to  give  the  world  examples  of  such  power  as 
the  benignity  of  their  stars  and  the  varied  character  of 
their  fantasies  enabled  them  to  command,  and  while 
desirous  of  imitating  the  perfection  of  Nature  by  the 
excellence  of  Art,  they  were  struggling  to  attain  that 
high  comprehension  which  many  call  intelligence,  and 
were  universally  toiling,  but  for  the  most  part  in  vain, 
the  Ruler  of  Heaven  was  pleased  to  turn  the  eyes  of  his 
clemency  towards  earth,  and  perceiving  the  fruitless- 
ness  of  so  many  labours,  the  ardent  studies  pursued 
without  any  result,  and  the  presumptuous  self-suffi- 
ciency of  men  which  is  farther  from  truth  than  is  dark- 
ness from  light,  he  resolved,  by  way  of  delivering  us 
from  such  great  errors,  to  send  to  the  world  a  spirit 
endowed  with  universality  of  power  in  each  art,  and  in 
every  profession,  one  capable  of  showing  by  himself 
alone  what  is  the  perfection  of  art  in  the  sketch,  the 
outline,  the  shadows,  or  the  lights;  one  who  could  give 
relief  to  painting  and  with  an  upright  judgment  could 
operate  as  perfectly  in  sculpture;  nay,|who  was  so  highly 
accomplished  in  architecture  also,  that  he  was  able  to 
render  our  habitations  secure  and  commodious,  healthy 
and  cheerful,  well-proportioned,  and  enriched  with  the 
varied  ornaments  of  art." 

A  more  prosaic  passage  follows  presently,  occa- 
sioned by  the  innuendoes  of  Condivi  as  to  Vasari's  in- 
timacy with  Michelangelo  and  his  knowledge  of  the 
facts  of  his  life  at  first  hand.  Vasari  meets  this  accusa- 
tion by  quoting  the  following  document  relating  to  the 

42 


Tuscan  Schools 

apprenticeship  of   Michelangelo  to   Domenico  Ghir-  Michel- 
landaio  when  fourteen  years  old.  "  1488.  I  acknowledge  angelo 
and  record  this  first  day  of  April  that  I,  Lodovico  di  Buonarroti 
Buonarroti,   have  engaged   Michelangelo  my  son  to 
Domenico  and  David  di  Tommaso  di  Currado  for  the 
three  years  next  to  come,  under  the  following  condi- 
tions: That  the  said  Michelangelo  shall  remain  with 
the  above  named  all  the  said  time,  to  the  end  that  they 
may  teach  him  to  paint  and  to  exercise  their  vocation, 
and  that  the  above  named  shall  have  full  command  over 
him  paying  him  in  the  course  of  these  three  years 
twenty-four  florins  as  wages.  .  .  ." 

Besides  this  teaching  in  his  earliest  youth,  it  is  con- 
sidered probable  that  in  1494,  when  he  visited  Bologna, 
he  came  under  influences  which  resulted  in  the  execu- 
tion at  about  that  time  of  the  unfinished  Entombment 
and  the  Holy  Family,  which  are  two  of  our  greatest 
treasures  in  the  National  Gallery.  As  he  took  to 
sculpture,  however,  before  he  was  out  of  Ghirlandaio's 
hands,  there  are  few  traces  of  any  activity  in  painting 
until  1506,  when  he  was  engaged  on  the  designs  for  the 
great  battle-piece  for  the  Council  Hall  at  Florence.  The 
one  easel  picture  of  which  Vasari  makes  any  mention, 
the  tondo  in  the  Uffizi,  is  the  only  one  besides  those 
already  noted  which  is  known  to  exist.  "The  Florentine 
citizen,  Angelo  Doni,"  Vasari  says,  "desired  to  have 
some  work  from  his  hand  as  he  was  his  friend ;  where- 
fore Michelangelo  began  a  circular  painting  of  Our  Lady 
for  him.  She  is  kneeling,  and  presents  the  Divine  Child 
to  Joseph.  Here  the  artist  has  finely  expressed  the  de- 
light with  which  the  Mother  regards  the  beauty  of  her 
Son,  as  is  clearly  manifest  in  the  turn  of  her  head  and 
fixedness  of  her  gaze;  equally  evident  is  her  wish  that 
this  contentment  shall  be  shared  by  that  pious  old  man 

43 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Michel-  who  receives  the  babe  with  infinite  tenderness  and  rever- 
angelo  ence.  Nor  was  this  enough  for  Michelangelo,  since  the 
Buonarroti  better  to  display  his  art  he  has  grouped  several  un- 
draped  figures  in  the  background,  some  upright,  some 
half  recumbent,  and  others  seated.  The  whole  work  is 
executed  with  so  much  care  and  finish  that  of  all  his 
pictures,  which  indeed  are  but  few,  this  is  considered 
the  best." 

After  relating  the  story  of  the  artist's  quarrel  with 
his  friend  over  the  price  of  this  masterpiece  (for  which 
he  at  first  only  asked  sixty  ducats),  Vasari  goes  on  to 
describe  the  now  lost  cartoons  for  the  great  fresco  in  the 
Council  Hall  at  Florence,  in  substance  as  follows: — 

"When  Leonardo  was  painting  in  the  great  hall  of 
the  Council,  Piero  Soderini,  who  was  then  Gonfalo- 
niere,  moved  by  the  extraordinary  ability  which  he  per- 
ceived in  Michelangelo  [he  calls  him  in  a  letter  a  young 
man  who  stands  above  all  his  calling  in  Italy;  nay,  in  all 
the  world],  caused  him  to  be  entrusted  with  a  portion  of 
the  work,  and  our  artist  began  a  very  large  cartoon  re- 
presenting the  Battle  of  Pisa.  It  represented  a  vast 
number  of  nude  figures  bathing  in  the  Arno,  as  men  do 
on  hot  days,  when  suddenly  the  enemy  is  heard  to  be 
attacking  the  camp.  The  soldiers  spring  forth  in  haste 
to  arm  themselves.  One  is  an  elderly  man,  who  to  shelter 
himself  from  the  heat  has  wreathed  a  garland  of  ivy 
round  his  head,  and,  seated  on  the  ground,  is  labouring 
to  draw  on  his  hose,  hindered  by  his  limbs  being  wet. 
Hearing  the  sound  of  the  drums  and  the  cries  of  the 
soldiers  he  struggles  violently  to  get  on  one  of  his 
stockings;  the  action  of  the  muscles  and  distortion  of 
the  mouth  evince  the  zeal  of  his  efforts.  Drummers  and 
others  hasten  to  the  camp  with  their  clothes  in  their 
arms,  all  in  the  most  singular  attitudes;  some  standing, 

44 


Tuscan  Schools 

others  kneeling  or  stooping;  some  falling,  others  spring-  Michel- 
ing  high  into  the  air  and  exhibiting  the  most  difficult  angelo 
foreshortenings.  .  .  .  The  artists  were  amazed  as  they  Buonarroti 
realised  that  the  master  had  in  this  cartoon  laid  open  to 
them  the  very  highest  resources  of  art;  nay,  there  are 
some  who  still  declare  that  they  have  never  seen  any- 
thing to  equal  it,  either  from  his  hand  or  any  other,  and 
they  do  not  believe  that  genius  will  ever  more  attain  to 
such  perfection.  Nor  is  this  an  exaggeration,  for  all  who 
have  designed  from  it  and  copied  it — as  it  was  the  habit 
for  both  natives  and  strangers  to  do — have  become  ex- 
cellent in  art,  amongst  whom  were  Raphael,  Andrea  del 
Sarto,  Franciabigio,  Pontormo,  and  Piero  del  Vaga." 

In  1508  Michelangelo  began  to  prepare  the  cartoons 
for  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel.  Space  forbids  me 
to  attempt  any  description  of  these,  but  the  story  of 
their  completion  as  related  by  Vasari  can  hardly  be 
omitted.  "When  half  of  them  were  nearly  finished,"  he 
says,  "Pope  Julius,  who  had  gone  more  than  once  to  see 
the  work — mounting  the  ladders  with  the  artist's  help 
— insisted  on  having  them  opened  to  public  view  with- 
out waiting  till  the  last  touches  were  given,  and  the 
chapel  was  no  sooner  open  than  all  Rome  hastened 
thither,  the  Pope  being  first,  even  before  the  dust  caused 
by  removing  the  scaffold  had  subsided.  Then  itwas  that 
Raphael,  who  was  very  prompt  in  imitation,  changed 
his  manner,  and  to  give  proof  of  his  ability  immediately 
executed  the  frescoes  with  the  Prophets  and  Sibyls 
in  the  church  of  the  Pace.  Bramante  (the  architect)  also 
laboured  to  convince  the  Pope  that  he  would  do  well  to 
entrust  the  second  half  to  Raphael.  .  .  .  But  Julius,  who 
justly  valued  the  ability  of  Michelangelo,  commanded 
that  he  should  continue  the /  /ork,  judging  from  what  he 
saw  of  the  first  half  that  he  would  be  able  to  improve 

45 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

Michel- the.  second.  Michelangelo  accordingly  finished  the 
angelo  whole  in  twenty  months,  without  help.  It  is  true  that 
Buonarroti  j-^  often  complained  that  he  was  prevented  from  giving 
it  the  finish  he  would  have  liked  owing  to  the  Pope's 
impatience,  and  his  constant  inquiries  as  to  when  it 
would  be  finished,  and  on  one  occasion  he  answered,  "It 
will  be  finished  when  I  shall  have  done  all  that  I  believe 
necessary  to  satisfy  art."  "And  we  command,"  replied 
Julius,  "that  you  satisfy  our  wish  to  have  it  done 
quickly,"  adding  finally  that  if  it  were  not  at  once  com- 
pleted he  would  have  Michelangelo  thrown  headlong 
from  the  scaffolding.  Hearing  this,  the  artist,  without 
taking  time  to  add  what  was  wanting,  took  down  the 
remainder  of  the  scaffolding,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of 
the  whole  city,  on  All  Saints'  Day,  when  the  Pope  went 
into  his  chapel  to  sing  Mass." 

Michelangelo  had  much  wished  to  retouch  some 
portions  of  the  work  a  secco,  as  had  been  done  by  the 
older  masters  who  had  painted  the  walls ;  and  to  add  a 
little  ultramarine  to  some  of  the  draperies,  and  gild 
other  parts,  so  as  to  give  a  richer  and  more  striking 
effect.  The  Pope,  too,  would  now  have  liked  these  addi- 
tions to  be  made,  but  as  Michelangelo  thought  it  would 
take  too  long  to  re-erect  the  scaffolding,  the  pictures 
remained  as  they  were.  The  Pope  would  sometimes  say 
to  him,  "Let  the  chapel  be  enriched  with  gold  and 
bright  colours;  it  looks  poor."  To  which  Michelangelo 
would  reply,  "Holy  Father,  the  men  of  those  days  did 
not  adorn  themselves  with  gold ;  those  who  are  painted 
here  less  than  any;  for  they  were  none  too  rich.  Besides, 
they  were  holy  men,  and  must  have  despised  riches  and 
ornaments." 


46 


Tuscan  Schools 

VII 
RAFFAELLO  DI  SANTI 

The  character  and  the  influence  of  Raphael  are  Raj 
well  expressed  in  the  following  sentences  with  which  diSanti 
Vasari  concludes  his  biography: — "  O  happy  and 
blessed  spirit !  every  one  speaks  with  interest  of  thee ; 
celebrates  thy  deeds ;  admires  thee  in  thy  works ! 
Well  might  Painting  die  when  this  noble  artist  ceased 
to  live  ;  for  when  his  eyes  were  closed  she  remained 
in  darkness.  For  us  who  survive  him  it  remains  to 
imitate  the  excellent  method  which  he  has  left  for  our 
guidance  ;  and  as  his  great  qualities  deserve,  and  our 
duty  bids  us,  to  cherish  his  memory  in  our  hearts,  and 
keep  it  alive  in  our  discourse  by  speaking  of  him  with 
the  high  respect  which  is  his  due.  For  through  him 
we  have  the  art  in  all  its  extent  carried  to  a  perfection 
which  could  hardly  have  been  looked  for ;  and  in  this 
universality  let  no  human  being  ever  hope  to  surpass 
him.  And,  beside  this  benefit  which  he  conferred  on 
Art  as  her  true  friend,  he  neglected  not  to  show  us 
how  every  man  should  conduct  himself  in  all  the  re- 
lations of  life.  Among  his  rare  gifts  there  is  one 
which  especially  excites  my  wonder ;  I  mean,  that 
Heaven  should  have  granted  him  to  infuse  a  spirit 
among  those  who  lived  around  him  so  contrary  to  that 
which  is  prevalent  among  professional  men.  The 
painters — I  do  not  allude  to  the  humble-minded  only, 
but  to  those  of  an  ambitious  turn,  and  many  of  this 
sort  there  are — the  painters  who  worked  in  company 
with  Raphael  lived  in  perfect  harmony,  as  if  all  bad 
feelings  were  extinguished  in  his  presence,  and  every 
base,  unworthy  thought  had  passed  from  their  minds. 

47 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Raffaello  This  was  because  the  artists  were  at  once  subdued  by 
di  Satiti  his  obliging  manners  and  by  his  surpassing  merit,  but 
more  than  all  by  the  spell  of  his  natural  character, 
which  was  so  full  of  affectionate  kindness,  that  not  only 
men,  but  even  the  very  brutes,  respected  him.  He 
always  had  a  great  number  of  artists  employed  for  him, 
helping  them  and  teaching  them  with  the  kindness  of 
a  father  to  his  children,  rather  than  as  a  master  direct- 
ing his  scholars.  For  which  reason  it  was  observed 
he  never  went  to  court  without  being  accompanied 
from  his  very  door  by  perhaps  fifty  painters  who  took 
pleasure  in  thus  attending  him  to  do  him  honour.  In 
short,  he  lived  more  as  a  sovereign  than  as  a  painter. 
And  thus,  O  Art  of  Painting !  thou  too,  then,  could 
account  thyself  most  happy,  since  an  artist  was  thine, 
who,  by  his  skill  and  by  his  moral  excellence  exalted 
thee  to  the  highest  heaven !  " 

Raphael  was  the  son  of  Giovanni  Sanzio,  or  di 
Santi,  of  Urbino.  He  received  his  first  education  as 
an  artist  from  his  father,  whom,  however,  he  lost  in  his 
eleventh  year.  As  early  as  1495  probably,  he  entered 
the  school  of  Pietro  Perugino,  at  Perugia,  where  he 
remained  till  about  his  twentieth  year. 

The  "Umbrian  School, "  in  which  Raphael  received 
his  first  education,  and  in  which  he  is  accordingly 
placed,  is  distinguished  from  the  Florentine,  of  which 
it  may  be  said  to  have  been  an  offshoot,  by  several 
well-defined  characteristics.  Chief  of  these  are,  first, 
the  more  sentimental  expression  of  religious  feeling, 
and  second,  the  greater  attention  paid  to  distance  as 
compared  with  the  principal  figures ;  both  of  which 
are  explainable  on  the  ground  of  local  circumstances. 
They  reflect  the  difference  between  the  bustling  in- 
tellectual activity  of  Florence  and  the  dreamy  exist 

48 


Tuscan  Schools 

ence  but  broader  horizon  of  the  dwellers  in  the  upper  Raffadlo 
valley  of  the  Tiber.  In  the  beautiful  Nativity  oidiSanti 
Piero  della  Francesca  (No.  908  in  the  National 
Gallery)  we  see  something  akin  to  the  Florentine 
pictures,  and  yet  something  more  besides.  Piero 
shared  with  Paolo  Uccello  the  eager  desire  to  dis- 
cover the  secrets  of  perspective ;  but  in  addition  he 
seems  to  have  been  influenced  by  the  study  of  nature 
herself,  in  the  open  air,  as  Uccello  never  was.  His 
pupil,  Luca  Signorelli  (1441-1523),  was  more  for- 
mal and  less  naturalistic,  as  may  be  seen  by  a  com- 
parison between  the  Circumcision  (No.  1128  in  the 
National  Gallery)  and  Piero's  Baptism  of  Christ  on  the 
opposite  wall.  Pietro  Perugino  (1446- 1523) — his  real 
name  was  Vannucci — was  influenced  both  by  Signorelli 
and  by  Verrocchio.  In  the  studio  of  the  latter  he  had 
probably  worked  with  Leonardo  and  Lorenzo  di 
Credi,  so  that  in  estimating  the  influences  which 
went  to  form  the  art  of  Raphael  we  need  not  insist 
too  strongly  on  the  distinction  between  "Umbrian" 
and  "  Florentine." 

Raphael's  first  independent  works  (about  1500)  are 
entirely  in  Perugino's  style.  They  bear  the  general 
stamp  of  the  Umbrian  School,  but  in  its  highest 
beauty.  His  youthful  efforts  are  essentially  youthful, 
and  seem  to  contain  the  earnest  of  a  high  develop- 
ment. Two  are  in  the  Berlin  Museum.  In  the  one  (No. 
141)  called  the  Madonna  Solly,  the  Madonna  reads 
in  a  book ;  the  Child  on  her  lap  holds  a  goldfinch. 
The  other  (No.  145),  with  heads  of  S.  Francis  and 
S.  Jerome,  is  better.  Similar  to  it,  but  much  more 
finished  and  developed,  is  a  small  round  picture,  the 
Madonna  Casa  Corniest abile,  now  at  St.  Petersburg. 

A   more  important   picture  of  this    time    is   the 
d  49 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Raffaello  Coronation  of  the  Virgin,  painted  for  the  church  of 
diSantiS.  Francesco  at  Perugia  in  1503,  but  now  in  the 
Vatican.  In  the  upper  part,  Christ  and  the  Madonna 
are  throned  on  clouds  and  surrounded  by  angels  with 
musical  instruments ;  underneath,  the  disciples  stand 
around  the  empty  tomb.  In  this  lower  part  of  the 
picture  there  is  a  very  evident  attempt  to  give  the 
figures  more  life,  motion,  and  enthusiastic  expression 
than  was  before  attempted  in  the  school. 

After  this,  Raphael  appears  to  have  quitted  the 
school  of  Perugino,  and  to  have  commenced  an  inde- 
pendent career :  he  executed  at  this  time  some  pictures 
in  the  neighbouring  town  of  Citta  di  Castello.  With 
all  the  features  of  the  Umbrian  School,  they  already 
show  the  freer  impulse  of  his  own  mind, — a  decided 
effort  to  individualize.  The  most  excellent  of  these, 
and  the  most  interesting  example  of  this  first  period  of 
Raphael's  development,  is  the  Marriage  of  the  Virgin 
(Lo  Sposalizio),  inscribed  with  his  name  and  the  date 
1504,  now  in  the  Brera  at  Milan.  With  much  of  the 
stiffness  and  constraint  of  the  old  school,  the  figures 
are  noble  and  dignified ;  the  countenances,  of  the 
sweetest  style  of  beauty,  are  expressive  of  a  tender, 
enthusiastic  melancholy,  which  lends  a  peculiar  charm 
to  this  subject. 

In  1504  Raphael  painted  the  two  little  pictures  in 
the  Louvre,  5.  George  and  5.  Michael  (Nos.  150 1-2) 
for  the  Duke  of  Urbino.  The  Knight  Dreaming,  a 
small  picture,  now  in  the  National  Gallery  (No.  213), 
is  supposed  to  have  been  painted  a  year  earlier. 

In  the  autumn  of  1504  Raphael  went  to  Florence. 
Tuscan  art  had  now  attained  its  highest  perfection,  and 
the  most  celebrated  artists  were  there  contending  for 
the  palm.     From  this  period  begins  his  emancipation 

50 


PLATE  VI.— PIETRO   PERUGINO 

CENTRAL  PORTION   OF  ALTAR-PIECE 

National  Gallery,  London 


Tuscan  Schools 

from  the  confined  manner  of  Perugino's  school ;  the  RqffaelU 
youth  ripens  into  manhood  and  acquires  the  free  mas-  di  Santi 
tery  of  form. 

To  this  time  belong  the  celebrated  Madonna  del 
Granduca,  now  in  the  Pitti  Gallery,  and  another 
formerly  belonging  to  the  Duke  of  Terra  Nuova,  and 
now  at  Berlin  (No.  247a).  In  the  next  year  we  find 
him  employed  on  several  large  works  in  Perugia; 
these  show  for  the  first  time  the  influence  of  Florentine 
art  in  the  purity,  fullness,  and  intelligent  treatment  of 
form ;  at  the  same  time  many  of  the  motives  of  the 
Peruginesque  school  are  still  apparent.  The  famous 
Cowper  Madonna,  recently  sold  to  an  American  for 
^140,000,  also  belongs  to  the  year  1505,  when  the 
blending  of  the  two  influences  resulted  in  a  picture 
which  has  been  extolled  by  the  sanest  of  critics  as 
"the  loveliest  of  Raphael's  Virgins."  An  altar-piece, 
executed  for  the  church  of  the  Serviti  at  Perugia,  in- 
scribed with  the  date  1506,  is  the  famous  Madonna 
del  Ansidei,  purchased  for  the  National  Gallery  from 
the  Duke  of  Marlborough.  Besides  the  dreamy  re- 
ligious feeling  of  the  School  of  Perugia,  we  perceive 
here  the  aim  at  a  greater  freedom,  founded  on  deeper 
study. 

Raphael  was  soon  back  in  Florence,  where  he  re- 
mained until  1508.  The  early  paintings  of  this  period 
betray,  as  might  be  expected,  many  reminiscences  of 
the  Peruginesque  school,  both  in  conception  and  execu- 
tion ;  the  later  ones  follow  in  all  essential  respects  the 
general  style  of  the  Florentines. 

One  of  the  earliest  is  the  Virgin  in  the  Meadow,  in 
the  Belvedere  Gallery  at  Vienna.  Two  others  show  a 
close  affinity  with  this  composition ;  one  is  the 
Madonna  del  Cardellino,  in  the  Tribune  of  the  Uffizi, 

51 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Raffadlo  in  which  S.  John  presents  a  goldfinch  to  the  infant 
di  Sant'i  Christ.     The  other  is  the  so-called  Belle  Jardiniere, 
inscribed  1507,  in  the  Louvre. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  Raphael's  progress  in  the 
smaller  pictures  which  he  painted  in  Florence — half- 
figures  of  the  Madonna  and  Child.  Here  again  the 
earliest  are  characterised  by  the  tenderest  feeling,  while 
a  freer  and  more  cheerful  enjoyment  of  life  is  apparent 
in  the  later  ones.  The  Madonna  della  Casa  Tempi,  at 
Munich,  is  the  first  of  this  series.  In  the  picture  from 
the  Colonna  Palace  at  Rome,  nowin  the  Berlin  Museum 
(No.  248),  the  same  childlike  sportiveness,  the  same 
maternal  tenderness,  are  developed  with  more  har- 
monious refinement.  A  larger  picture,  belonging  to 
the  middle  time  of  his  Florentine  period,  is  in  the 
Munich  Gallery  —  the  Madonna  Canignani,  which 
presents  a  peculiar  study  of  artificial  grouping,  in  a 
pyramidal  shape.  Among  the  best  pictures  of  the 
latter  part  of  this  Florentine  period  are  the  .S.  Cath- 
erine, now  in  the  National  Gallery,  formerly  in  the 
Aldobrandini  Gallery  at  Rome,  and  two  large  altar- 
pieces.  One  of  these  is  the  Madonna  del Baldacc kino, 
in  the  Pitti  Gallery.  The  other,  The  Entombment, 
painted  for  the  church  of  S.  Francesco  at  Perugia,  is 
now  in  the  Borghese  Gallery  at  Rome.  This  is  the 
first  of  Raphael's  compositions  in  which  an  historical 
subject  is  dramatically  developed  ;  but  in  this  respect 
the  task  exceeded  his  powers.  The  composition 
lacks  repose  and  unity  of  effect ;  the  movements  are 
exaggerated  and  mannered ;  but  the  figure  of  the 
Saviour  is  extremely  beautiful,  and  may  be  placed 
among  the  greatest  of  the  master's  creations. 

About  the  middle  of  the  year  1508,  when  only  in 
his  twenty-fifth  year,  Raphael  was  invited  by  Pope 

52 


PLATE  VII.— RAPHAEL 
THE  ANSIDEI   MADONNA 

National  Gallery,  London 


PLATE   VIII.— RAPHAEL 

LA   BELLE  JARDINIERE 

Louvre,  Paris 


Tuscan  Schools 

Julius  II.  to  decorate  the  state  apartments  in  the  Raffaello 
Vatican.  With  these  works  commences  the  third  di  Santi 
period  of  his  development,  and  in  these  he  reached  his 
highest  perfection.  The  subjects,  more  important  than 
any  in  which  he  had  hitherto  been  occupied,  gave  full 
scope  to  his  powers  ;  and  the  proximity  of  Michel- 
angelo, who  at  this  time  began  the  painting  of  the 
Sistine  Chapel,  excited  his  emulation. 

At  this  period,  just  before  the  Reformation,  the 
Papal  power  had  reached  its  proudest  elevation.  To 
glorify  this  power — to  represent  Rome  as  the  centre  of 
spiritual  culture — were  the  objects  of  the  paintings  in 
the  Vatican.  They  cover  the  ceilings  and  walls  of 
three  chambers  and  a  large  saloon,  which  now  bear 
the  name  of  the  "  Stanze  of  Raphael." 

The  execution  of  these  paintings  principally  occu- 
pied Raphael  to  the  time  of  his  death,  and  were  only 
completed  by  his  scholars. 

In  1 5 13  and  15 14  Raphael  also  executed  designs  for 
the  ten  tapestries  intended  to  adorn  the  Sistine  Chapel, 
representing  events  from  the  lives  of  the  apostles. 
Seven  of  these  magnificent  cartoons  are  now  in  the 
South  Kensington  Museum. 

Beside  these  important  commissions  executed  for 
the  Papal  court,  during  twelve  years,  many  claims 
were  made  on  him  by  private  persons.  Two  frescoes 
executed  for  Roman  churches  may  be  mentioned. 
One,  in  S.  Maria  della  Pace,  represents  four  Sibyls 
surrounded  by  angels,  which  it  is  interesting  to  com- 
pare with  the  Sibyls  of  Michelangelo.  In  each  we 
find  the  peculiar  excellence  of  the  two  great  masters ; 
Michelangelo's  figures  are  grand,  sublime,  profound, 
while  the  fresco  of  the  Pace  exhibits  Raphael's  serene 
and  ingenious  grace.     In  a  second  fresco,  the  prophet 

53 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Raffaello  Isaiah  and  two  angels,  in  the  church  of  S.  Agostino 
di  Santi  at  Rome,  the  comparison  is  less  favourable  to  Raphael, 
the  effort  to  rival  the  powerful  style  of  Michelangelo 
being  rather  too  obvious. 

Like  all  other  artists,  Raphael  is  at  his  best  when, 
undisturbed  by  outside  influences,  he  follows  the  free 
original  impulse  of  his  own  mind.  His  peculiar  ele- 
ment was  grace  and  beauty  of  form,  in  so  far  as  these 
are  the  expression  of  high  moral  purity. 

The  following  works  of  his  third  period  are  especi- 
ally deserving  of  mention. 

The  Aldobrandini  Madonna,  now  in  the  National 
Gallery — in  which  the  Madonna  is  sitting  on  a  bench, 
and  bends  down  to  the  little  S.  John,  her  left  arm 
round  him.  The  Madonna  of  the  Duke  of  Alba,  in 
the  Hermitage  at  St.  Petersburg.  La  Vierge  au 
voile,  in  the  Louvre  ;  the  Madonna  is  seated  in  a 
kneeling  position,  lifting  the  veil  from  the  sleeping- 
Child  in  order  to  show  him  to  the  little  S.  John.  The 
Madonna  della  Seggiola,  in  the  Pitti  at  Florence 
(painted  about  1 516),  a  circular  picture.  The  Madonna 
della  Tenda  at  Munich  ;  a  composition  similar  to  the 
last,  except  that  the  Child  is  represented  in  more  lively 
action,  and  looking  upwards. 

A  series  of  similar,  but  in  some  instances  more 
copious  compositions,  belong  to  a  still  later  period  ; 
they  are  in  a  great  measure  the  work  of  his  scholars, 
painted  after  his  drawings,  and  only  partly  worked 
upon  by  Raphael  himself.  Indeed  many  pictures  of 
this  class  should  perhaps  be  considered  altogether  as 
the  productions  of  his  school,  at  a  time  when  that 
school  was  under  his  direct  superintendence,  and  when 
it  was  enabled  to  imitate  his  finer  characteristics  in  a 
remarkable  degree. 

54 


Tuscan  Schools 

In  this  class  are  the  Madonna  dell'  Impannata,  in  Raffaello 
the  Pitti,  which  takes  its  name  from  the  oiled-paper  di  Santi 
window  in  the  background.  The  large  picture  of  a 
Holy  Family  in  the  Louvre,  painted  in  1518,  for 
Francis  L,  is  peculiarly  excellent.  The  whole  has  a 
character  of  cheerfulness  and  joy  :  an  easy  and  delicate 
play  of  graceful  lines,  which  unite  in  an  intelligible 
and  harmonious  whole.  Giulio  Romano  assisted  in 
the  execution. 

With  regard  to  the  large  altar-pieces  of  his  later 
period  in  which  several  Saints  are  assembled  round 
the  Madonna,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Raphael  has 
contrived  to  place  them  in  reciprocal  relation  to  each 
other,  and  to  establish  a  connection  between  them  ; 
while  the  earlier  masters  either  ranged  them  next  to 
one  another  in  simple  symmetrical  repose,  or  disposed 
them  with  a  view  to  picturesque  effect. 

Of  these  the  Madonna  di  Foligno,  in  the  Vati- 
can, is  the  earliest.  In  the  upper  part  of  the  picture 
is  the  Madonna  with  the  Child,  enthroned  on  the 
clouds  in  a  glory,  surrounded  by  angels.  Underneath, 
on  one  side,  kneels  the  donor,  behind  him  stands 
S.  Jerome.  On  the  other  side  is  S.  Francis,  kneeling, 
while  he  points  with  one  hand  out  of  the  picture  to 
the  people,  for  whom  he  entreats  the  protection  of  the 
Mother  of  Grace  ;  behind  him  is  S.  John  the  Baptist, 
who  points  to  the  Madonna,  while  he  looks  at  the 
spectator  as  if  inviting  him  to  worship  her. 

The  second,  the  Madonna  del Pesce  has  much  more 
repose  and  grandeur  as  whole,  and  unites  the  sublime 
and  abstract  character  of  sacred  beings  with  the  in- 
dividuality of  nature  in  the  happiest  manner.  It 
is  now  in  Madrid,  but  was  originally  painted  for 
S.  Domenico  at  Naples,  about  15 13.  It  represents  the 
«  55 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Raffaello  Madonna  and  Child  on  a  throne ;  on  one  side  is 
di  Santi  S.  Jerome ;  on  the  other  the  guardian  angel  with  the 
young  Tobias  who  carrries  a  fish  (whence  the  name 
of  the  picture).  The  artist  has  imparted  a  wonder- 
fully poetic  character  to  the  subject.  S.  Jerome, 
kneeling  on  the  steps  of  the  throne,  has  been  reading 
from  a  book  to  the  Virgin  and  Child,  and  appears  to 
have  been  interrupted  by  the  entrance  of  Tobias  and 
the  Angel.  The  infant  Christ  turns  towards  them, 
but  at  the  same  time  lays  his  hand  on  the  open  book, 
as  if  to  mark  the  place.  The  Virgin  turns  towards 
the  Angel,  who  introduces  Tobias ;  while  the  latter 
dropping  on  his  knees,  looks  up  meekly  to  the  Divine 
Infant.  S.  Jerome  looks  over  the  book  to  the  new- 
comers, as  if  ready  to  proceed  with  his  occupation 
after  the  interruption. 

But  the  most  important  is  the  famous  Madonna  di 
San  Sisto,  at  Dresden.  Here  the  Madonna  appears 
as  the  queen  of  the  heavenly  host,  in  a  brilliant  glory 
of  countless  angel-heads,  standing  on  the  clouds,  with 
the  eternal  Son  in  her  arms ;  S.  Sixtus  and  S.  Bar- 
bara kneel  at  the  sides.  Both  of  them  seem  to  connect 
the  picture  with  the  real  spectators.  This  is  a  rare 
example  of  a  picture  of  Raphael's  later  time,  executed 
entirely  by  his  own  hand. 

Two  large  altar  pictures  still  claim  our  attention  ; 
they  also  belong  to  Raphael's  later  period.  One  is  the 
Christ  Bearing  the  Cross,  in  Madrid,  known  by  the 
name  of  Lo  Spasimo  di  Sicilia,  from  the  convent  of 
Santa  Maria  dello  Spasimo  at  Palermo,  for  which  it  was 
painted.  Here,  as  in  the  tapestries,  we  again  find  a 
finely  conceived  development  of  the  event,  and  an  ex- 
cellent composition.  The  other  is  the  Transfiguration, 
now  in  the  Vatican,  formerly  in  S.  Pietro  at  Montorio. 

56 


PLATE   IX.— RAPHAEL 
PORTRAIT  OF  BALDASSARE   CASTIGLIONE 

Louvre,  Paris 


< 


I 


f 


Tuscan  Schools 

This  was  the  last  work  of  the  master  (left  unfinished  at  Raffadlo 
his  death);  the  one  which  was  suspended  over  his  coffin,  di  Santi 
a  trophy  of  his  fame,  for  public  homage. 

"  1  cannot  believe  myself  in  Rome,"  wrote  Count 
Castiglione,  on  the  death  of  the  master,  "  now  that  my 
poor  Raphael  is  no  longer  here."  Men  regarded  his 
works  with  religious  veneration  as  if  God  had  revealed 
himself  through  Raphael  as  in  former  days  through  the 
prophets.  His  remains  were  publicly  laid  out  on  a 
splendid  catafalque,  while  his  last  work,  the  Transfigur- 
ation, was  suspended  over  his  head.  He  was  buried  in 
the  Pantheon,  under  an  altar  adorned  by  a  statue  of  the 
Holy  Virgin,  a  consecration  offering  from  Raphael  him- 
self. Doubts  having  been  raised  as  to  the  precise  spot, 
a  search  was  made  in  the  Pantheon  in  1833,  and 
Raphael's  bones  were  found  ;  the  situation  agreeing 
exactly  with  Vasari's  description  of  the  place  of  inter- 
ment. On  the  1 8th  of  October,  in  the  same  year,  the 
relics  were  reinterred  in  the  same  spot  with  great 
solemnities. 

The  schools  of  Lombardy  and  the  Emilia,  which 
derive  their  characteristics  from  Florentine  rather  than 
from  Venetian  influences,  may  here  be  briefly  mentioned 
before  turning  to  the  consideration  of  the  Venetian 
School.  In  1482,  it  will  be  remembered,  Leonardo  went 
to  Milan,  where  he  remained  till  the  end  of  the  century; 
and  the  extent  of  his  influence  may  be  judged  from  many 
of  the  productions  of  Bernadino  Luini  (1475- 1532) 
and  Giovanni  Antonio  Bazzi,  known  as  Sodoma 
(1477- 1 549).  Of  Ambrogio  di  PREDiswe  have  already 
heard  in  connection  with  the  painting  of  our  version  of 
Leonardo's  Virgin  of  the  Rocks.  Giovanni  Antonio 
Boltraffio(  1 467- 1 5 1 6)  was  a  pupil  of  Vincenzo  Foppa, 

57 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

Raffaello  but  he  soon  abandoned  the  manner  of  the  old  Lombard 
di  Santi  School,  and  came  under  the  influence  of  the  great  Floren- 
tine, of  whom  he  became  a  most  enthusiastic  disciple. 

More  independent — indeed,  he  is  officially  character- 
ised as  "  an  isolated  phenomenon  in  Italian  Art " — was 
Antonio  Allegri,  commonly  called  Correggio,  from 
the  place  of  his  birth.  In  1518  he  settled  at  Parma,  where 
he  remained  till  1530,  so  that  he  is  usually  catalogued 
as  of  the  School  of  Parma,  which  for  an  isolated  phe- 
nomenon serves  as  well  as  any  other.  Of  late  years  his 
popularity  has  been  somewhat  diminished  by  the  in- 
creasing demands  of  private  collectors  for  works  which 
are  purchasable,  and  most  of  Correggio's  are  in  public 
galleries.  At  Dresden  are  some  of  the  most  famous, 
notably  the  Nativity,  called  "  La  Notte,"  from  its  won- 
derful scheme  of  illumination,  and  two  or  three  large 
altar-pieces.  The  Venus  Mercury  and  Cupid  in  our 
National  Gallery,  though  sadly  injured,  is  still  one  of 
his  masterpieces.  It  was  purchased  by  Charles  I.  with 
the  famous  collection  of  the  Duke  of  Mantua.  Our  Ecce 
Homo  is  entitled  to  rank  with  it,  as  is  also  the  little 
Madonna  of  the  Basket. 


58 


PLATE  X.— CORREGGIO 

MERCURY,  CUPID,  AND  VENUS 
National  Gallery,  London 


VENETIAN  SCHOOLS 


THE  VIVARINI  AND  BELLINI 

In  Venice  the  Byzantine  style  appears  to  have  offered  The 
a  more  stubborn  resistance  to  the  innovators  than  in  Vivarini 
Tuscany,  or,  in  fact,  in  any  other  part  of  Italy.  Few,  \{  and  Bellini 
any,  of  the  allegorical  subjects  with  which  Giotto  and 
his  scholars  decorated  whole  buildings  are  to  be  found 
here,  and  the  altar  pictures  retain  longer  than  anywhere 
else  the  gilt  canopied  compartments  and  divisions,  and 
the  tranquil  positions  of  single  figures.   It  was  not  until 
a  century  after  the  death  of  Cimabue  and  Duccio  that 
the  real  development  of  the  Venetian  School  was  mani- 
fested, so  that  when  things  did  begin  to  move  the  con- 
ditions were  not  the  same,  and  the  results  accordingly 
were  something  substantially  different. 

The  influence  of  the  Byzantine  style  still  hangs 
heavily  over  the  work  of  Nicolo  Semitecolo,  who  was 
working  in  Venice  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, as  may  be  seen  in  the  great  altar-piece  ascribed  to 
him  in  the  Academy — the  Coronation  of  the  Virgin  with 
fourteen  scenes  from  the  life  of  Christ.  In  this  work 
there  is  little  of  the  general  advancement  visible  in  other 
parts  of  Italy.  It  corresponds  most  nearly  with  the  work 
of  Duccio  of  Siena,  though  without  attaining  his  excel- 
lence; while  the  gold  hatchings  and  olive  brown  tones 
are  still  Byzantine. 

59 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  An  altar-piece,  by  Michele  Giambono,  also  in  the 
Vivarini  Academy,  painted  during  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth 
and  Bellini  century,  shows  a  more  decided  advance,  and  even 
anticipates  some  of  the  later  excellences  of  the  Venetian 
School.  The  drapery  is  in  the  long  and  easy  lines  which 
we  see  in  the  Tuscan  pictures  of  the  period,  and  what  is 
especially  significant,  in  view  of  the  subsequent  develop- 
ment of  Venetian  painting,  the  colouring  is  rich,  deep, 
and  transparent,  and  the  flesh  tints  unusually  soft  and 
warm.  This  is  signed  by  Giambono,  and  is  one  of  his 
most  important  works,  as  well  as  the  most  complete, 
as  it  exists  in  its  original  state  as  an  ancona  or  altar- 
piece  divided  into  compartments  by  canopies  of  joiners' 
work.  It  is  unusual  in  form,  inasmuch  as  the  central 
panel,  though  slightly  larger  than  the  pair  on  either 
side,  contains  but  a  single  figure.  This  figure  was 
generally  supposed  to  be  the  Saviour,  but  it  has  recently 
been  pointed  out  that  it  is  S.  James  the  Great,  the 
others  being  SS.  John  the  Evangelist,  Philip  Benizi, 
Michael,  and  Louis  of  Toulouse.  Some  of  Giambono's 
finest  work  was  in  mosaic,  and  the  walls  and  roof  of  the 
Cappella  de'  Mascoli  in  S.  Mark's  may  be  regarded  as 
the  highest  achievement  in  mosaic  of  the  early  Venetian 
School.  While  this  species  of  decoration  had  given 
place  to  fresco  painting  elsewhere,  it  was  here,  in  1430, 
brought  to  a  pitch  of  perfection  by  Giambono  which 
entitles  this  work  to  a  prominent  place  in  the  history  ot 
painting. 

But  the  two  chief  pioneers  of  the  early  fifteenth 
century  were  Giovanni,  or  Johannes  Alamanus,  and 
Antonio  da  Murano.  The  former  appears  from  his 
surname  to  have  been  of  German  origin,  the  latter 
belonged  to  the  family  of  Vivarini,  and  they  used  to 
work  together  on  the  same  pictures.   Two  excellent 

60 


Venetian  Schools 

examples  of  this  combination  are  in  the  Academy  at  The 
Venice.  The  one,  dated  1440,  is  a  Coronation  of  \hzVivarini 
Virgin,  with  many  figures,  including  several  boys,  and  and  Bellini 
numerous  saints  seated.  In  the  heads  of  the  saints  we 
may  trace  the  hand  of  Alamanus,  in  the  Germanic  type 
of  countenance  which  recalls  the  style  of  Stephen  of 
Cologne.  A  repetition  of  this,  if  it  is  not  actually  the 
original,  is  in  S.  Pantelone  at  Venice.  The  other  picture, 
dated  1446,  of  enormous  dimensions,  represents  the 
Virgin  enthroned,    beneath   a   canopy   sustained    by 
angels,  with  the  four  Fathers  of  the  Church  at  her  side. 
The  colouring  is  fully  as  flowing  and  splendid  as  that 
of  Giambono. 

We  do  not  recognise  here,  as  Kugler  rightly  ob- 
serves, the  influence  of  the  school  of  Giotto,  but  rather 
the  types  of  the  Germanic  style  gradually  assuming  a 
new  character,  possibly  owing  to  the  social  condition  of 
Venice  itself.  There  was  something  perhaps  in  the 
nature  of  a  rich  commercial  aristocracy  of  the  middle 
ages  calculated  to  encourage  that  species  of  art  which 
offered  the  greatest  splendour  and  elegance  to  the  eye; 
and  this  also,  if  possible,  in  a  portable  form;  thus  pre- 
ferring the  domestic  altar  or  the  dedication  picture 
to  wall  decorations  in  churches.  The  contemporary 
Flemish  paintings,  under  similar  conditions,  exhibit 
analogous  results.  With  regard  to  colour,  the  depth 
and  transparency  observable  in  the  works  of  the  old 
Venetian  School  had  longbeen  a  distinguishing  feature 
in  the  Byzantine  paintings  on  wood,  and  may  therefore 
be  traceable  to  this  source  without  assuming  an  influ- 
ence on  the  part  of  Padua,  or  from  the  north  through 
Giovanni  Alamanus. 

The  two  side  panels  of  an  altar-piece,  representing 
severally  SS.  Peter  and  Jerome,  and  SS.  Francis  and 

61 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Mark,  now  in  the  National  Gallery  (Nos.  768  and  1284), 
Vivarini  are  ascribed  to  Antonio  Vivarini  alone,  though  the 
and  Bellini  centre  panel,  the  Virgin  and  Child,  now  in  the  Poldi- 
Pezzoli  collection  at  Milan  is  said  to  be  the  joint  work 
of  Alamanus  and  Antonio.  However  that  may  be,  there 
is  no  longer  any  dispute  aboutthe  fascinating  Adoration 
of  the  Kings  in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum  at 
Berlin,  formerly  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  Gentile  da 
Fabriano,  but  now  catalogued  as  that  of  Antonio. 

In  1450  the  name  of  Alamanus  disappears  al- 
together, and  that  of  B artolommeo  Vivarini,  Antonio's 
younger  brother,  replaces  it  in  an  inscription  upon  the 
great  altar-piece  commissioned  by  Pope  Nicholas  V.  in 
commemoration  of  Cardinal  Albergati,  now  in  the 
Pinacoteca  of  Bologna.  The  change  is  noticeable  as 
introducing  the  Paduan  influence  of  Squarcione,  under 
whom  Bartolommeo  had  studied,  instead  of  the  northern 
influence  of  Alamanus,  into  Antonio's  workshop,  and 
while  this  work  of  1450,  as  might  be  supposed,  bears  a 
general  resemblance  to  that  of  1446,  the  change  of 
partnership  is  at  least  perceptible,  and  had  a  determin- 
ing influence  on  the  development  of  the  Venetian  style. 

A  slightly  earlier  work  of  Bartolommeo  alone  is  a 
Madonna  and  Child  belonging  to  Sir  Hugh  Lane, 
signed  and  dated  1448.  An  altar-piece  in  the  Venice 
Academy  is  dated  1464,  a  Madonna  and  Four  Saints, 
in  the  Frari,  1482,  and  S.  Barbara,  in  the  Academy, 
1490.  Bartolommeo  is  supposed  to  have  died  in  1499. 

Alvise,  or  Luigi,  Vivarini  was  the  son  of  Antonio, 
and  though  he  worked  under  him  and  his  uncle 
Bartolommeo,  as  well  as  under  Giovanni  Bellini,  the 
Paduan  influence  is  apparent  in  his  work.  He  was  born 
in  1447,  and  his  first  dated  work  is  an  altar-piece  at 
Montefiorentino,  in  1475.  In  the  Academy  at  Venice  is 

62 


Venetian  Schools 

a  Madonna  dated  1480,  and  at  Naples  a  Madonna  with  The 
SS.  Francis  and  Bernard,  1485.  Another  Madonna  at  Vivarini 
Vienna  is  dated  1489,  and  the  large  altar-piece  in  ft&andBclltni 
Basilica  at  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum  in  Berlin  is 
assigned  to  about  the  same  time.  This  is  the  first  of  his 
works  in  which  the  influence  of  Bellini  rather  than  that 
of  his  family  is  traceable,  while  of  the  "Redentore" 
Madonna  at  Venice,  of  about  five  years  later,  Mr 
Bernhard  Bernson  says  that,  "  As  a  composition  no 
work  of  the  kind  by  Giovanni  Bellini  even  rivals  it."  In 
1498  he  had  advanced  so  far  as  to  be  spoken  of  as  an- 
ticipating Giorgione  and  Titian,  in  the  effect  of  light 
and  in  the  roundness  and  softness  of  the  figures  of  the 
Resurrection,  at  Bragora.  His  last  work,  the  altar-piece 
at  the  Frari,  was  completed  after  his  death  in  1504  by 
his  pupil  Basaiti.  Bartolommeo  Montagna,  Jacopo  da 
Valenza  and  Lorenzo  Lotto  were  the  chief  of  his  other 
pupils. 

In  connection  with  the  Vivarini  must  be  mentioned 
Carlo  Crivelli,  who  studied  with  Bartolommeounder 
Antonio  and  Squarcione.  But  there  was  something 
fierce  and  uncongenial  about  Crivelli  which  takes  him 
out  of  the  main  body  of  Venetian  painters,  and  seems  to 
have  given  him  more  pride  in  being  made  a  knight  than 
in  his  pictorial  achievements,  remarkable  as  they  were. 
In  his  ornamentation  of  every  detail  with  gold  and 
jewels  he  recalls  the  style  of  Antonio  Vivarini,  but  while 
the  master  used  it  as  accessory  merely,  Crivelli  posi- 
tively revelled  in  it.  An  inventory  of  the  precious  stones, 
ornaments,  fruits  and  flowers,  and  other  detached  items 
in  the  great  "  Demidoff  Altar-Piece  "  in  the  National 
Gallery  would  fill  several  pages.  Of  the  eight  examples 
in  this  gallery  the  earliest  is  probably  the  Dead  Christ, 
presumably  painted  in  1472.  The  Demidoff  altar-piece 

63 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  is  dated  1476.  The  Annunciation  (No.  739),  which  may 
Vivarinibe  considered  his  masterpiece,  was  ten  years  later.  In 
and Bellini  1490  Crivelli  was  knighted  by  Prince  Ferdinand  of 
Capua,  and  from  that  date  onward  he  was  careful  to  add 
to  his  signature  the  title  Miles — as  appears  in  our 
Madonna  and  Child  Enthroned,  with  SS.  Jerome  and 
Sebastian — called  the  Madonna  della  Rondine  : — 

Carolus  Crivellus  venetus  miles  pinxit. 
This  was  painted  for  the  Odoni  Chapel  in  S.  Francesco 
at  Matelica,  the  coat  of  arms  of  the  family  being  painted 
on  the  step. 

Our  Annunciation  was  executed  for  the  convent  of 
the  Santissima  Annunziata  at  Ascoli,  and  is  dated  i486 
Three  coats  of  arms  on  the  front  of  the  step  at  the 
bottom  of  the  picture  are  those  of  the  Bishop  of  Ascoli, 
Pope  Innocent  VII.,  the  reigning  Pontiff,  and  the  City 
of  Ascoli.  Between  these  are  the  words  Libertas 
Ecclesiastica,  in  allusion  to  the  charter  of  self-govern- 
ment given  in  1482  by  the  Pope  to  the  citizens  of  Ascoli. 
The  patron  saint  of  the  city,  S.  Emidius,  is  represented 
as  a  youth  kneeling  beside  the  Archangel,  holding  in 
his  hands  a  model  of  it.  The  Virgin  is  seen  through 
the  open  door  of  a  house,  and  in  an  open  loggia  above  are 
peacocks  and  other  birds.  Amid  all  the  rich  detail,  the 
significance  of  the  group  of  figures  at  the  top  of  a  flight 
of  steps  must  not  be  missed,  amongst  which  a  child  and 
a  poet  are  the  only  two  who  are  represented  as  noticing 
the  mystic  event. 

Another  painter  of  the  earlier  half  of  the  fourteenth 
century  may  be  mentioned  here,  though  as  he  was  more 
famous  as  a  medallist  his  influence  on  the  main  course 
of  painting  is  not  observable.  Vittore  Pisano,  called 
Pisanello,  was  born  in  Verona  before  1400,  and  died 
in  1455.    Of  the  few  pictures  attributed  to  him  we  are 

64 


Venetian  Schools 

fortunate  in  having  two  such  beautiful  examples  as  the  The 
SS.  Anthony  and  George  and  The  Vision  ofS.  EustaceV'warini 
in  the  National  Gallery.    Both  exhibit  his  two  most*»^  Bellini 
noticeable  characteristics,  namely,  the  minute  care  and 
exquisite  feeling  that  made  him  the  most  famous  of 
medallists,  and  his  wonderful  drawing  of  animals.  The 
latter,  it  is  worth  remarking,  was  attributed  by  a  former 
owner  to  Albert  Durer.  The  other  is  signed  "  Pisanus"; 
in  the  frame  are  inserted  casts  of  two  of  his  medals, 
representing  Leonello  d'Este,  his  patron,  and  a  profile 
of  himself. 

Another  very  considerable  factor  in  the  development 
of  Venetian  painting  was  the  influence  of  Gentile  da 
Fabriano  (c.  i 360-1 430),  who  settled  in  Venice  in  the 
latter  part  of  his  life,  and  there  formed  the  closest  in- 
timacy with  Antonio  Vivarini.  The  remarkable  Adora- 
tion of  the  Kings  in  the  Berlin  Museum  was  until  lately 
given  to  Gentile,  though  it  is  now  catalogued  as  the 
work  of  Antonio.  Of  Gentile's  education  little  is  known, 
and  of  the  numerous  works  which  he  executed  at 
Fabriano,  in  Rome  and  in  Venice  very  few  have  sur- 
vived. From  those  that  exist,  however,  we  can  form  an 
estimate  of  his  talents  and  of  the  difference  between  his 
earlier  and  later  styles.  To  the  first  belong  a  fresco  of 
the  Madonna  in  the  Cathedral  at  Orvieto,  and  the 
beautiful  picture  of  the  Madonna  and  saints  which  is 
now  in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum  at  Berlin.  Also 
the  fine  Adoration  of  the  Kings,  inscribed  with  his 
name  and  the  date  1423,  formerly  in  the  sacristy  of 
S.  Trinita  at  Florence,  and  now  in  the  Accademia. 
This,  his  masterpiece,  is  one  of  the  finest  conceptions 
of  the  subject  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  excellent  pro- 
ductions of  the  schools  descended  from  Giotto.  Of  his 
later  period  the  Coronation  of  the  Virgin  (called  the 
e  65 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Quadro  della  Romitd)  in  the  Brera  gallery  at  Milan  is 
Vivarini  one  of  the  finest.  In  many  respects  his  work  is  like 
and  Bellini  that  of  Fra  Angelico,  and  was  aptly  characterised  by 
Michelangelo  when  he  said  that  "Gentile'spictures  were 
like  his  name."  Apart  from  the  influence  of  the  Paduan 
School,  which  will  next  be  noticed,  the  Venetian  owed 
most  to  Gentile  da  Fabriano,  if  only  as  the  master  of 
Jacopo  Bellini,  whose  son,  Giovanni  Bellini,  may  be 
regarded  as  the  real  head  of  the  Venetian  School  as 
developed  by  his  pupils  Giorgione  and  Titian  at  the 
opening  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

Whether  or  not  Giotto  left  any  actual  pupils  in  Padua 
after  completing  the  frescoes  in  the  chapel  of  the  arena 
there,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  older  school  of  paint- 
ing in  Padua,  which  centred  round  the  church  contain- 
ing the  body  of  S.  Anthony,  was  an  offshoot  of  the 
Florentine,  and  that  as  Giotto  was  the  great  leader  in 
Florence  he  must  be  considered  the  same  here ;  though 
his  followers  differ  so  much  from  each  other  in  style  that 
beyond  their  indebtedness  to  their  founder  they  have 
no  distinctive  feature  in  common.  But  with  the  opening 
of  the  fifteenth  century  one  particular  tendency  was 
developed  under  the  fostering  influence  of  Francesco 
Squarcione,  born  in  1394,  which  affected  in  a  very  sen- 
sible degree  the  style  of  the  great  painters  of  the  next 
generation  in  Venice.  This,  in  a  word,  was  the  cult  of 
the  antique. 

Among  the  Florentines,  as  we  have  seen,  the  study 
of  form  was  chiefly  pursued  on  the  principle  of  direct 
reference  to  nature,  the  especial  object  in  view  being  an 
imitation  in  two  dimensions  of  the  actual  appearances 
and  circumstances  of  life  existing  in  three.  In  the 
Paduan  School  it  now  came  to  be  very  differently  devel- 
oped, namely,  by  the  study  of  the  masterpieces  of  antique 

66 


Venetian  Schools 

sculpture,  in  which  the  common  forms  of  nature  were  'The 
already  raised  to  a  high  ideal  of  beauty.  This  school  has  Vivarini 
consequently  the  merit,  as  Kugler  points  out,  of  apply-  and  Bellini 
ing  the  rich  results  of  an  earlier,  long-forgotten  excel- 
lence in  art  to  modern  practice.  Of  a  real  comprehension 
of  the  idealising  principle  of  classic  art  there  does  not 
appear  any  trace;  what  the  Paduans  borrowed  from 
the  antique  was  limited  primarily  to  mere  outward 
beauty.  Accordingly  in  the  earliest  examples  we  find  the 
drapery  treated  according  to  the  antique  costume,  and 
the  general  arrangement  more  resembling  bas-relief 
than  rounded  groups.  The  accessories  display  in  like 
manner  a  special  attention  to  antique  models,  particu- 
larly in  the  architecture,  and  the  frequent  introduction 
of  festoons  of  fruit;  while  the  exaggerated  sharpness  in 
the  marking  of  the  forms  due  to  the  combined  influence 
of  the  study  of  the  antique  and  the  naturalising  tendency 
of  the  time,  sometimes  borders  on  excess. 

The  immediate  cause  of  this  almost  sudden  out- 
break of  the  cult  of  the  antique — whatever  natural  forces 
were  behind  it — was  the  visit  of  Squarcione  to  Greece, 
and  Southern  Italy,  to  collect  specimens  of  the  remains 
of  ancient  art.  On  his  return  to  Padua  his  collection 
soon  attracted  a  great  number  of  pupils  anxious  to  avail 
themselves  of  the  advantages  it  offered;  and  by  these 
pupils,  who  poured  in  from  all  parts  of  Italy,  the  manner 
of  the  school  was  afterwards  spread  throughout  a  great 
portion  of  the  country.  Squarcione  himself  is  better 
known  as  a  teacher  than  as  an  artist,  the  few  of  his  re- 
maining works  being  of  no  great  importance.  There  is 
no  example  in  the  National  Gallery,  but  of  the  work  of 
his  great  pupil,  Mantegna,  we  have  as  much,  at  any  rate, 
as  will  serve  to  commemorate  the  master. 

Andrea  Mantegna  was  born  at  Vicenza  in  1431, 

67 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  and  when  no  more  than  ten  years  old  was  inscribed  in 
Vivarini  the  guild  of  Padua  as  pupil  and  adopted  son  of  Squar- 
and  Bellini  ci0ne.  As  early  as  1448  he  had  painted  an  altar-piece  for 
Santa  Sophia,  now  lost,  and  in  1452  the  fresco  in  San 
Antonio.  In  1455  he  was  engaged  with  Nicolo  Pizzolo 
(Donatello's  assistant),  and  others,  on  the  six  frescoes  in 
the  Eremitani  Church  at  Padua.  The  whole  of  the  left 
side  of  the  chapel  of  SS.  James  and  Christopher — the  life 
of  S.  James — and  the  martyrdom  of  S.  Christopher  are 
his,  and  in  these,  his  earliest  remaining  works,  we 
already  see  the  result  of  pedantic  antiquarianism  com- 
bined with  his  extraordinary  individuality. 

In  1460  he  went  to  Mantua,  where  he  remained  for 
the  greater  part  of  his  life,  visiting  Florence  in  1466 
and  Rome  in  1488. 

Among  his  earlier  works  are  the  small  Adoration 
of  the  Kings  in  the  Uffizi  at  Florence,  the  Death  of  the 
Virgin  and  the  S.  George  in  the  Venice  Academy.  From 
1484  to  1494  he  was  intermittently  engaged  on  the  nine 
great  cartoons  of  The  Triumph  of  Ccesar,  which  are  now 
at  Hampton  Court,  having  been  acquired  by  Charles  I. 
with  many  other  gems  from  the  Duke  of  Mantua's  col- 
lection. On  the  completion  of  these  he  painted  the  cele- 
brated Madonna  delta  Vittoria,  now  in  the  Louvre — a 
large  altar-piece  representing  a  Madonna  surrounded 
by  saints,  with  Francesco  Gonzaga,  Duke  of  Mantua, 
and  his  wife,  kneeling  at  her  feet.  It  is  a  dedication 
picture  for  a  victory  obtained  over  Charles  VIII.  of 
France  in  J495.  It  is  no  less  remarkable  for  its  superb 
execution  than  for  a  softer  treatment  of  the  flesh  than  is 
usual  in  Mantegna's  work.  Two  other  pictures  in  the 
Louvre  are,  however,  distinguished  by  similar  qualities 
— the  Parnassus,  painted  in  1497,  and  the  Triumph  of 
Virtue. 

68 


PLATE  XL— ANDREA  MANTEGNA 
THE   MADONNA   DELLA  VITTORIA 

Louvre,  Paris 


Venetian  Schools 

In  our  own  collection  we  have  The  Agony  in  the  The 
Garden,  painted  in  1459 — to  which  I  shall  refer  ^rc-Vivarini 
sently — two  monochrome  paintings  (Nos.  1125  and  and  Bellini 
1 145),  the  beautiful  Virgin  and  Child  Enthroned,  with 
SS.  Mary  Magdalen  and  John  the  Baptist,  which  is 
comparable  with  the  more  famous  Louvre  Madonna, 
and,  lastly,  the  Triumph  of  Scipio,  in  monochrome, 
painted  for  Francesco  Cornaro,  a  Venetian  nobleman, 
completed  in  1506,  only  a  few  months  before  the 
painter's  death.  In  this  we  see  that  Mantegna's  anti- 
quarianism  was  not  simply  a  youthful  phase,  but  lasted 
till  the  very  end  of  his  career.  The  subject  is  the  recep- 
tion of  the  Phrygian  mother  of  the  gods  among  the 
recognised  divinities  of  the  Roman  State,  as  is  indicated 
on  the  plinth  by  the  inscription.  In  the  centre  is  Claudia 
Quinta  about  to  kneel  before  the  bust  of  the  goddess. 
Behind  is  Scipio,  and  in  the  background  are  monuments 
to  his  family.  The  composition  includes  twenty-two 
figures.  It  is  significant  that  the  subject  and  its  treat- 
ment are  so  entirely  classic  as  only  to  be  appreciated  by 
references  to  Latin  literature. 

Another  significance  attaches  to  the  Agony  in  the 
Garden  above  mentioned,  which  is  one  of  the  very 
earliest,  as  the  Scipio  is  the  very  latest,  of  Mantegna's 
pictures,  being  painted  before  he  left  Padua  to  go  to 
Mantua.  In  this  we  find  that  the  original  suggestion 
for  the  design  appears  to  have  been  taken  from  a  draw- 
ing in  the  sketch-book  of  his  father-in-law,  Jacopo 
Bellini,  which  is  now  in  the  British  Museum;  and  the 
same  design  appears  to  have  served  Giovanni  Bellini  in 
the  composition  of  the  picture  in  our  gallery  (No.  726). 
This  takes  us  back  to  Venice,  and  accounts  for  the 
Paduan  influence  traceable  in  the  works  of  the  Bellini 
family  and  their  pupils. 

69 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Jacopo  Bellini,  whose  considerable  talents  have 
Vivarini  been  somewhat  obscured  by  the  fame  of  his  two  sons, 
and  Bellini  Gentile  and  Giovanni,  was  originally  a  pupil  of  Gentile 
da  Fabriano,  after  whom  he  named  his  eldest  son.  He 
was  working  in  Padua  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  in  rivalry  with  Squarcione,  and  in  1453  his 
daughter  Nicolosia  married  Andrea  Mantegna.  Thus 
it  happened  that  both  of  his  sons  came  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Mantegna,  and  evidently,  too,  of  the  sculptor 
Donatello,  when  working  at  Padua  between  1450  and 
1460. 

Very  few  authentic  pictures  by  Jacopo  are  known  to 
us.  A  Crucifixion  (much  repainted)  was  in  the  sacristy 
of  the  Episcopal  Palace  at  Verona;  and  another,  which 
recalls  the  treatment  of  his  master,  Gentile  da  Fabriano, 
at  Lovere,  near  Bergamo.  In  the  sketch-book  above 
mentioned,  the  contents  of  which  consist  of  sacred 
subjects,  and  studies  from  the  antique,  both  in  archi- 
tecture and  in  costume,  we  see  the  peculiar  tendency  of 
the  Paduan  School  expressed  in  the  most  complete  and 
comprehensive  manner.  These  drawings  constitute  the 
most  remarkable  link  of  connection  between  Mantegna 
and  the  sons  of  Jacopo  Bellini,  all  three  of  whom  must 
have  studied  from  them.  The  book  was  inherited  by 
Gentile  on  his  mother's  death,  and  bequeathed  by  him 
to  his  brother  on  condition  that  he  should  finish  the 
picture  of  S.  Mark,  on  which  Gentile  was  engaged  at  the 
time  of  his  death. 

Giovanni  Bellini  was  born  in  1428  or  1430  and 
lived  to  1516.  Albert  Durer,  writing  from  Venice  in 
1506,  says  that  "  he  is  very  old,  but  is  still  the  best  in 
painting." 

The  greater  number  of  Bellini's  pictures  are  to  be 
found  in  the  galleries  and  churches  in  Venice,  all  of 

70 


Venetian  Schools 

those  which  are  dated  being  the  work  of  his  old  age.  The 
Of  his  earlier  pictures  we  are  fortunate  in  having  two  Vivarini 
fine  examples  in  the  National  Gallery,  Chris fs  A 'gony  an^  Bellim 
in  the  Garden  (No.  726)  and  The  Blood  of  the  Redeemer 
(No.  1233).     In  both  of  these  the  influence  of  his  fam- 
ous brother-in-law  Andrea  Mantegna,  is  traceable, — 
the  former  being  till  lately  attributed  to  him.     Both 
Giovanni  and  Gentile  worked  in  Padua,  where  Man- 
tegna was  established,  in  1 460  or  thereabouts,  and  where 
another  influence,  that  of  the  sculptor  Donatello,  must 
have  had  its  effect  on  the  young  brothers.     Similar  in 
character,  and  even  more  beautiful  in  some  respects,  is 
the  Redeemer,  a  single  half  figure  in  a  landscape,  re- 
cently acquired  for  the  Louvre — the  first  authentic 
example  of  the  master  in  that  collection. 

In  1464,  Giovanni  had  returned  to  Venice,  and  it 
was  some  years  before  the  severe  Paduan  influence 
melted  before  "  the  sensuous  feeling  of  the  true  Vene- 
tian temperament."  In  1475,  however,  the  arrival  of 
Antonello  da  Messina  in  Venice,  bringing  with  him 
the  practice  of  painting  in  oil,  effected  a  revolution,  in 
which  Giovanni,  if  not  one  of  the  foremost,  was  certainly 
one  of  the  most  successful  in  adopting  the  new  method. 
His  later  works,  so  far  from  showing  any  diminution 
of  power,  may  be  said  to  anticipate  the  Venetian  style 
of  the  sixteenth  century  in  the  clearest  manner.  One  of 
the  chief,  dated  1488,  is  the  large  altar-piece  in  the 
sacristy  of  S.  Maria  di  Frari,  a  Madonna  Enthroned 
with  two  angels  and  four  saints.  The  two  little  angels 
are  of  the  utmost  beauty;  the  one  is  playing  on  a  lute, 
and  listens  with  head  inclined  to  hear  whether  the  in- 
strument is  in  tune;  the  other  is  blowing  a  pipe.  The 
whole  is  perfectly  finished  and  of  a  splendid  effect  of 
colour.  To  the  year  1 486  belongs  a  Madonna  Enthroned 

7i 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  with  Six  Saints,  now  in  the  Academy  at  Venice.  The 
Vivarini  famous  head  of  the  Doge  Loredano  in  the  National 
and Bellini  Gallery  must  have  been  painted  in  or  after  1501.  In 
1507,  he  completed  the  large  picture  of  S.  Mark  Preach- 
ing at  Alexandria,  now  in  the  Brera  Gallery  at  Milan, 
begun  by  his  brother  Gentile.  Within  three  years  of  his 
death,  namely  in  1513,  he  could  produce  such  a  master- 
work  as  the  altar-piece  in  S.  Giovanni  Crisostomo.  His 
lastwork,thelandscape  in  which  was  finished  by  Titian, 
is  dated  15 14.  This  is  the  famous  Bacchanal  now  in 
the  collection  of  the  Duke  of  Northumberland. 

The  influence  of  Bellini  on  the  Venetian  School  was 
paramount,  and  his  noble  example  helped  more  than  any- 
thing else  to  develop  the  excellences  observable  in  the 
works  of  Cimada  Conegliano,  Vincenzo Catena,  Lorenzo 
Lotto,  Palma  Vecchio  and  Basaiti,  to  say  nothing  of  his 
great  pupils  Titian  and  Giorgione.  It  is  impossible  to 
conjecture  what  course  the  genius  of  this  younger  gen- 
eration would  have  taken  without  his  guidance,  but 
when  we  consider  that  in  1 500  Bellini  was  seventy  years 
old,  and  had  stored  within  his  mind  the  experience  of  his 
early  association  with  his  brother-in-law  Andrea  Man- 
tegna  in  Padua,  the  introduction  of  the  use  of  oil  paints 
by  Antonello  da  Messina  in  1475,  since  which  date  he 
had  sedulously  developed  the  new  practice ;  when  we 
also  take  into  account  the  dignity  and  gravity  of  his 
own  works,  and  the  indication  they  afford  of  the  man 
himself,  it  is  not  difficult  to  judge  how  much  his  pupils 
and  successors  owed  to  him. 

The  works  of  Gentile  Bellini,  the  elder  brother  of 
Giovanni,  are  of  less  importance,  but  of  considerable 
interest,  especially  in  view  of  his  journey  to  Constanti- 
nople in  1479  at  the  request  of  the  Sultan,  whose  por- 
trait he  painted  there  in  the  following  year.    A  replica 

72 


PLATE  XII.   -GIOVANNI   BELLINI 

THE  DOGE  LOREDANO 

National  Gallery,  London 


Venetian  Schools 

of  this  portrait  has  been  bequeathed  to  the  National  The 
Gallery  by  Sir  Henry  Layard,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  Vivarini 
that  the  difficulties  raised  by  the  Italian  government  as  and  Bellini 
to  its  removal  from  Venice  will  shortly  be  overcome. 
The  picture  of  S.  Mark  Preaching  at  Alexandria 
already  mentioned  as  having  been  finished  by  Giovanni, 
is  remarkable  for  the  Oriental  costumes  of  all  the  figures 
in  it.      Gentile's  pictures  are  often  ascribed  to  his 
brother;  in  two  examples  at  the  National  Gallery  (Nos. 
808  and  1440)  there  is  actually  a  false  signature  on  a 
cartellino.    In  the  latter  instance  Messrs  Ludwig  and 
Molmenti  are  still  of  opinion  that  the  picture  is  the 
work  of  Giovanni. 

Vincenzo  Catena  (c.  1470- 1530)  is  not  known  to 
have  been  a  pupil  of  Bellini,  but  he  began  by  so  mod- 
elling his  style  upon  him  that  one  of  his  works  in  the 
National  Gallery  was  until  quite  lately  officially  as- 
cribed to  him,  namely  the  S.  Jerome  in  his  Study. 
Another,  a  later  work,  A  Warrior  Adoring  the  Infant 
Christ  was  similarly  ascribed  to  Giorgione.  This  is  a 
proof  that  Catena  was  very  susceptible  to  various  influ- 
ences, and  was  "an  artist  of  extraordinary  suppleness 
of  mind,  never  too  old  to  learn  or  to  appreciate  new 
ideals  and  new  sentiments."  In  a  manner  more  his 
own  is  the  Madonna  with  Four  Saints  in  the  Berlin 
Gallery  (No.  19).  The  S.  Jerome  and  the  Warrior  are 
among  the  most  popular  pictures  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery— partly  perhaps  on  account  of  their  supposed  il- 
lustrious parentage,  but  by  no  means  entirely.  A 
painter  who  could  so  absorb  the  characteristics  of  two 
such  masters  must  needs  be  a  master  himself. 

Cima  da  Conegliano,  so  called  from  his  birth- 
place in  Friuli — the  rocky  height  of  which  serves  as  a 
background  in  some  of  his  pictures — settled  in  Venice 

73 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  in  1490,  when  he  was  about  thirty  years  old.  The  in- 
Vivarini  fluence  of  Bellini  may  be  seen  in  the  temperamental  as 
and  Bellini  weu  as  the  technical  qualities  of  his  work,  which  is  dis- 
tinguished by  sound  drawing  and  proportion,  fine  and 
brilliant  colour,  as  well  as  by  sympathetic  types  of 
countenance.  One  of  his  best  and  earliest  pictures  is 
the  5.  John  the  Baptist  with  four  other  saints,  in 
Santa  Maria  del  Orto  in  Venice.  Another  is  the  Mad- 
onna with  S.  Jerome  and  S.  Louis,  now  in  the  Vienna 
Gallery.  A  smaller  but  peculiarly  attractive  piece  is 
the  S.  Anianus  oj  Alexandria  healing  a  shoemaker's 
wounded  hand,  at  Berlin,  distinguished  for  its  beauti- 
ful clear  colours  and  the  life-like  character  of  the 
heads. 

Andrea  PREViTALi,born  in  Bergamo  in  1480,  came 
to  Venice  to  study  under  Bellini,  whom  he  succeeded  in 
imitating  with  remarkable  success.  The  Mystic  Mar- 
riage of  S.  Catherine  (No.  1409)  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery was  formerly  attributed  to  Bellini.  If  he  had  not 
the  originality  to  carry  the  art  any  farther,  his  pictures 
are  nevertheless  a  decided  and  very  agreeable  proof  of 
the  advance  that  was  being  made  in  it  at  the  beginning 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  before  the  full  splendour  of 
Giorgione  and  Titian  had  unfolded. 

Marco  Basaiti,  though  probably  not  a  pupil  of 
Bellini,  nevertheless  acquired  many  of  his  characteris- 
tics. The  picture  in  the  National  Gallery  known  as 
The  Madonna  of  the  Meadow  was  until  lately  assigned 
to  Bellini,  and  another  of  his,  in  the  Giovanelli  Palace 
at  Venice,  which  is  identical  in  technique,  tone,  and 
general  effect  with  this  one,  is  still  so  ascribed. 
Whether  or  not  he  learnt  from  Bellini,  he  was  certainly 
an  assistant  to  Alvise  Vivarini,  on  whose  death  he  com- 
pleted the  large  altar-piece  in  the  Church  of  S.  Maria 

74 


Venetian  Schools 

de  Friari  at  Venice,  representing  S.  Ambrose  sur-  The 
rounded  by  Saints.    H  i  s  Christ  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  Vivarini 
and  The  Calling  of  Zebedee,  both  dated  1510,  are  now  and  Bellim 
in  the  Academy  at  Venice,  and  together  with  the  Por- 
trait of  a  Man,  dated  152 1,  in  the  Bergamo  Gallery, 
and  The  A ssumption  in  S.  Pietro  Martire  at  Murano, 
may  be  considered  his  best  performances. 

More  remote  from  Bellini,  yet  not  so  far  as  to  be 
entirely  free  from  his  influence  in  some  of  their  more 
important  compositions,  was  the  school  formed  by 
Lazzaro  di  Bastiani  or  Sebastiani,  of  which  the 
chief  ornament  was  Vittore  Carpaccio,  and  among  the 
lesser  ones  Giovanni  Mansueti  and  Benedetto  Diana. 
The  history  of  this  independant  group  of  painters  has 
only  of  late  years  been  elucidated;  Kugler,  after  a  page 
devoted  to  Carpaccio,  dismissed  them  with  the  remark 
that  Mansueti  and  Bastiani  were  both  pupils  of  Car- 
paccio, and  that  Benedetto  Diana  was  "less  distin- 
guished." Our  national  collection  was  without  any 
example  until  1896,  when  Mansueti's  Symbolic  repre- 
sentation of  the  Crucifixion  was  purchased.  In  1905 
the  National  Art-Collections  Fund  secured  Bastiani's 
Virgin  and  Child,  and  in  19 10  Sir  Claude  Phillips 
presented  Diana's  Christ  Blessing.  Alas  !  that  we  are 
still  without  anything  from  the  hand  of  Vittore  Car- 
paccio. Seven  portraits  by  Moroni  do  not  fill  a  gap 
like  this. 

The  name  of  Lazzaro  de  Bastiani  first  occurs  in 
Venice  as  a  witness  to  his  brother's  will  in  1449,  and 
as  early  as  1460  he  was  painting  an  altar-piece  for  the 
Church  of  San  Samuele.  Ten  years  later,  the  brothers 
of  the  Scuolo  di  San  Marco  ordered  a  picture  of  the 
Story  of  David  from  him,  promising  him  the  same 
payment  as  they  gave  to  Jacobo  Bellini,  who  had  been 

75 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  working  for  them  with  his  two  sons  Gentile  and  Gio- 
Vivarini  vanni.  In  1474,  another  proof  of  his  rank  and  repute 
and Bellini  as  a  painter  is  afforded  by  a  letter  from  a  gentleman 
in  Constantinople,  asking  for  a  picture  by  him,  but 
that  Giovanni  Bellini  should  paint  it  in  the  event  of 
Bastiani  being  already  dead.  He  was  thus,  it  would 
seem,  preferred  to  Bellini,  though  it  will  be  remem- 
bered that  five  years  later,  when  the  Sultan  expressed 
the  wish  that  a  distinguished  portrait-painter  should 
be  sent  him  from  Venice,  it  was  Gentile  Bellini  who 
was  nominated.  All  the  same,  Gentile  was  a  portrait- 
painter,  and  Bastiani  was  not ;  and  it  it  fairly  evident 
that  the  latter  was  at  least  in  the  front  rank.  One  of  his 
best-known  pictures  the  Vergine  dai  begli  occhi  in  the 
Ducal  Palace  at  Venice  used  to  be  attributed  to  Gio- 
vanni Bellini ;  but  though  he  appears  to  have  drawn 
inspiration  for  his  larger  and  more  important  composi- 
tions from  Jacobo  Bellini,  his  style  was  chiefly  devel- 
oped through  that  of  Giambono.  His  most  important 
work  is  now  in  the  Academy  at  Vienna — an  altar- 
piece  painted  for  the  Church  of  Corpus  Domini,  Venice, 
S.  Veneranda  Enthroned.  In  the  Imperial  Gallery  at 
Viennaare  a  Last  Communion  and  Funeral  of  S.  Giro- 
lamo.  In  the  Academy  at  Venice  are  >S.  Anthony  of 
Padua,  seated  between  the  branches  of  a  walnut-tree, 
with  Cardinal  Bonaventura  and  Brother  Leo  on  either 
side,  a  large  picture  of  a  Miracle  of  the  Holy  Cross, 
and  a  remarkable  rendering  of  The  Madonna  Kneeling, 
the  child  being  laid  under  an  elaborate  canopy.  An 
Entombment  in  the  Church  of  S.  Antonino  at  Venice  is 
reminiscent  of  Giovanni  Bellini  at  his  best. 

In  1508,  the  name  of  Vittore  Carpaccio  occurs 
with  that  of  Bastiani  in  connection  with  the  fres- 
coes of  Giorgione  upon  the  facade  of  the  Fondaco  de 

76 


Venetian  Schools 

Tedeschi,  about  which  there  was  a  dispute.     To  Car-  The 
paccio  we  are  indebted  for  the  most  vivid  realization  Vivarim 
of  the  contemporary  life  of  Venice;  for  although  K\san(* Belltm 
subjects  were  nominally  taken  from  sacred  history  or 
legend,  they  are  treated  in  a  thoroughly  secular  fashion, 
giving  the  clearest  idea  of  the  buildings,  people,  and 
costume  of  the  Venice  of  his  time,  with  the  greatest 
variety  and  richest  development.     His  object  is  not 
only  to  represent  single  events,  but  a  complete  scene, 
and  while  we  observe  this  characteristic  in  one  or  two 
pictures  by  the  Bellini,  Carpaccio  not  only  shows  it 
much  oftener,  but  carries  it  to  a  much  fuller  develop- 
ment— possibly    influenced    by     the    Netherlandish 
masters. 

Many  of  his  works  are  in  the  Academy  at  Venice  ; 
eight  large  pictures,  painted  between  1490  and  1495, 
represent  the  history  of  S.  Ursula  and  the  eleven 
thousand  virgins.  Such  a  wealth  of  charming  material 
might  have  embarrassed  a  less  capable  painter,  but  "the 
monotonous  incident  which  forms  the  groundwork  of 
many  of  them,"  as  Kugler  coldly  puts  it,  "  is  through- 
out varied  and  elevated  by  a  free  style  of  grouping  and 
by  happy  moral  allusions."  Another  series  is  that  of 
the  Miracles  of  the  Holy  Cross,  among  which  may  be 
especially  noticed  the  cure  of  a  man  possessed  by  a 
devil ;  the  scene  is  laid  in  the  loggia  of  a  Venetian 
palace,  and  is  watched  from  below  by  a  varied  group 
of  figures  on  the  Canal  and  its  banks.  Larger  and 
broader  treatment  may  be  seen  in  the  Presentation  in 
the  Temple,  painted  in  15 10,  which  is  also  in  the 
Academy,  and  in  the  altar-piece  of  Si  Vitale,  dated 
1 5 14.  This  last  brings  Carpaccio  into  closer  compari- 
son with  the  later  Venetian  painters,  being  in  the 
nature  of  a  Santa  Conversazione,  where  the  holy  per- 

77 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  sonages  are  grouped  in  some  definite  relation  to  each 
Vivarini  other,  and  not  independent  figures. 
and  Bellini  Palma  Vecchio  (1480-1528),  so  called  to  distin- 
guish him  from  Giacomo  Palma  the  younger — Palma 
Giovane, — was  so  much  influenced  by  Giorgione  and 
Titian  that  his  indebtedness  to  Bellini  appears  to  have 
been  comparatively  slight.  The  beautiful  Portrait  of 
a  Poet  in  the  National  Gallery  has  been  attributed  both 
to  Giorgione  and  to  Titian. 

The  number  of  pictures  which  are  now  permitted  by 
the  experts  to  be  called  Giorgione's  is  so  small,  that  we 
may  learn  more  about  him  as  an  influence  on  the  work 
of  other  painters — especially  Titian — than  from  the 
meagre  materials  available  for  his  own  biography. 
The  only  unquestioned  examples  of  his  work  are  three 
pictures  at  the  Uffizi,  The  Trial  of  Moses,  The  fudg- 
ment  of  Solomon,  and  The  Knight  of  Malta ;  the  Venus 
at  Dresden  ;  The  Three  Philosophers  at  Vienna ;  and 
the  famous  Concert  Champitre  in  the  Louvre.  But 
until  the  critics  deprive  him  even  of  these,  we  are  able 
to  agree  that  "  his  capital  achievement  was  the  inven- 
tion of  the  modern  spirit  of  lyrical  passion  and  romance 
in  pictorial  art,  and  his  magical  charm  has  never  been 
equalled." 

II 

TIZIANO  VECELLIO 

Titian  occupies  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  important  a 
place  in  the  history  of  painting  as  does  Shakespeare 
in  that  of  literature.  His  fame,  his  popularity,  the 
wide  range  as  well  as  the  immense  quantity  of  his  works, 
entitle  him  to  be  ranked  with  our  poet,  if  only  for  the 

78 


PLATE  XIII.-GIORGIONE 
VENETIAN    PASTORAL 

Louvre,  Paris 


Venetian  Schools 

enormous  influence  they  have  both  exercised  on  pos-  Tiziano 
terity  :  and  without  carrying  the  parallel  farther  than  Vecellio 
the  limits  imposed  by  the  difference  of  their  circum- 
stances and  their  method  of  expression,  it  may  fairly  be 
said  that  Titian,  in  painting,  stands  for  us  to-day  much 
as  Shakespeare  stands  for  in  letters.  "  Titian,"  says 
M.  Caro  Delvaille,1  "is  the  father  of  modern  painting. 
As  the  blood  of  the  patriarchs  of  old  infused  the  veins  of 
a  whole  race,  so  the  genius  of  the  most  productive  of 
painters  was  destined  to  infuse  those  of  artists  through 
all  the  ages  even  to  the  present  day.  He  bequeathed, 
in  his  enormous  ceuvre,  a  heritage  in  which  generations 
of  painters  have  participated." 

Not  only  was  he  the  father  of  modern  painting,  but 
he  was  himself  the  first  modern  painter,  just  as  Shake- 
speare was,  to  all  present  intents  and  purposes,  the  first 
modern  writer.  Among  a  thousand  readers  of  Shake- 
speare, there  is  possibly  not  more  than  one  who  has 
ever  read  a  line  of  Chaucer,  or  who  has  ever  heard  of 
any  of  his  other  predecessors.  So  it  is  with  Titian. 
To  the  connoisseur,  Titian  is  one  of  the  latest  painters  ; 
to  the  public  he  is  the  earliest.  "  In  certain  of  his 
portraits,"  we  read  in  the  National  Gallery  Catalogue, 
"  he  ranks  with  the  supreme  masters  ;  in  certain  other 
aspects  he  is  seen  as  the  greatest  academician,  as  per- 
haps he  was  the  first." 

As  it  happens,  too,  Titian  stands  in  much  the  same 
relation  to  Giorgione  as  Shakespeare  did  to  Marlowe. 
Giorgione  was  really  the  great  innovator,  and  Gior- 
gione died  young,  leaving  Titian  to  carry  on  the  work. 
It  has  always  been  supposed  that  Titian  and  Giorgione, 
like  Marlowe  and  Shakespeare,  were  born  within  the 
same  year ;  but  in  this  respect  the  parallel  is  no  longer 

1  "  Titien,"  par  Henry  Caro- Delvaille.     Librairie  Felix  Alcan. 

79 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Tiziano  admissible,  as  Mr  Herbert  Cook  has  shown  to  the  verge 
Vecellio  ofactual  proof  that  thestoryof  Titian  being  born  in  1577, 
and  having  lived  to  beninety-nineyearsold,isunworthy 
of  acceptance.  If  this  were  merely  a  question  of  bio- 
graphy, it  would  not  be  worth  dwelling  upon;  but  as  it 
seriously  affects  the  whole  study  of  early  Venetian  paint- 
ing, it  is  necessary  to  point  out  that  the  probability,  ac- 
cording to  a  critical  study  of  all  the  evidence  available,  is 
that  Titian  was  not  born  till  1488  or  1489,  and  was  thus 
really  the  pupil  rather  than  the  contemporary  of  Gior- 
gione,  and  therefore  more  slightly  influenced  by  Gio- 
vanni Bellini  than  has  been  generally  supposed. 

Without  going  into  all  the  evidence  adduced  by 
Mr  Cook  [Reviews  and  Appreciations,  Heinemann, 
19 1 3)  it  is  nevertheless  pretty  evident  that  in  the  ac- 
count given  by  his  friend  and  contemporary,  Lodovico 
Dolce,  published  in  1557,  we  have  the  most  authentic 
story  of  Titian's  early  years,  and  from  this  it  is  quite 
clear  that  Titian  was  considerably  younger  than  Gior- 
gione.  "  Being  born  at  Cadore,"  he  writes,  "of  hon- 
ourable parents,  he  was  sent,  when  a  child  of  nine  years 
old,  by  his  father  to  Venice,  to  the  house  of  his  father's 
brother,  in  order  that  he  might  be  putundersome  proper 
master  to  study  painting ;  his  father  having  perceived 
in  him  even  at  that  tender  age  strong  marks  of  genius 
towards  the  art.  .  .  .  His  uncle  directly  carried  the 
child  to  the  house  of  Sebastanio,  father  of  the  gentil- 
issimo  Valerio  and  of  Francesco  Zuccati  (distinguished 
masters  of  the  art  of  mosaic,  .  .  .)  to  learn  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  art.  From  them  he  was  removed  to  Gentile 
Bellini,  brother  of  Giovanni,  but  much  inferior  to  him, 
who  at  that  time  was  at  work  with  his  brother  in  the 
Grand  Council  Chamber.  But  Titian,  impelled  by  na- 
ture to  greater  excellence  and  perfection  in  his  art,  could 

80 


Venetian  Schools 

not  endure  following  the  dry  and  laboured  manner  of  Tiziano 
Gentile,  but  designed  with  boldness  and  expedition.  Vecellio 
Whereupon  Gentile  told  him  he  would  make  no  pro- 
gress in  painting  because  he  diverged  so  much  from 
the  old  style.  Thereupon  Titian  left  the  stupid  Gentile 
and  found  means  to  attach  himself  to  Giovanni  Bellini ; 
but  not  perfectly  pleased  with  his  manner,  he  chose 
Giorgio  da  Castel  Franco.  Titian,  then,  drawing  and 
painting  with  Giorgione,  as  he  was  called,  became 
in  a  short  time  so  accomplished  in  art  that  when 
Giorgione  was  painting  (in  1507-8)  the  facade  of  the 
Fondaco  de'  Tedeschi,  or  Exchange  of  the  German 
merchants,  which  looks  towards  the  Grand  Canal, 
Titian  was  allotted  the  other  side  which  faces  the  mar- 
ket place,  being  at  the  time  scarcely  twenty  years  old. 
Here  he  represented  a  Judith  of  wonderful  design  and 
colour,  so  remarkable  indeed,  that  when  the  work  came 
to  be  uncovered  it  was  commonly  thought  to  be  the 
work  of  Giorgione,  and  all  the  latter's  friends  con- 
gratulated him  (Giorgione)  as  being  by  far  the  best 
thinghe  had  produced.  Whereupon  Giorgione,  in  great 
displeasure,  replied  that  the  work  was  from  the  hand 
of  his  pupil,  who  showed  already  how  he  could  surpass 
his  master  and  (what  is  more)  Giorgione  shut  himself 
up  for  some  days  at  home,  as  if  in  despair,  seeing  that 
a  young  [i.e.  younger)  man  knew  more  than  he  did." 

Again,  in  speaking  of  the  famous  altar-piece — the 
Assumption,  now  in  the  Academy  at  Venice — painted 
by  Titian  in  15 16,  Dolce  mentions  him  twice  as  "gio- 
vinetto."  "  Not  long  afterwards  he  was  commissioned 
to  paint  a  large  picture  for  the  high  altar  of  the  Church 
of  the  Frate  Minori,  where  Titian,  quite  a  young  man, 
painted  in  oil  the  Virgin  ascending  to  Heaven.  .  .  . 
This  was  the  first  public  work  which  he  painted  in  oil, 
f  81 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


li'ziano  and  he  did  it  in  a  very  short  time,  and  while  still  a 

Vccellio  young  man." 

Vasari's  account  of  Titian's  early  years  is  substan- 
tially the  same,  but  unfortunately  opens  with  the  state- 
ment that  he  was  V  born  in  the  year  1480."  This  might 
easily  have  been  a  slip  of  the  pen  or  a  printer's  mistake 
for  1488  or  1489,  and  subsequent  passages  in  the  life 
bear  out  this  supposition.  But  partly  because  Titian 
was  a  Venetian  and  not  a  Florentine,  and  partly,  no 
doubt,  because  he  was  still  alive,  and  had  been  pro- 
ducing picture  after  picture  for  over  sixty  years  at  the 
time  Vasari  published  his  second  edition  in  1568,  the 
whole  account  is  so  confused  and  inaccurate  that  its 
credit  has  been  severely  shaken  by  modern  critics,  with 
the  result  that  it  is  hardly  nowadays  considered  authen- 
tic in  any  respect.  The  following  extracts,  however, 
there  seems  no  reason  to  question  : — 

"  About  the  year  1507,  Giorgione  not  being  satisfied 
[with  the  old-fashioned  methods  of  Bellini  and  others] 
began  to  give  his  works  an  unwonted  softness  and  re- 
lief, painting  them  in  a  very  beautiful  manner."  And 
a  little  later  M  Having  seen  the  manner  of  Giorgione, 
Titian  early  resolved  to  abandon  thatofGian  Bellino, 
although  well  grounded  therein.  He  now,  therefore,  de- 
voted himself  to  this  purpose,  and  in  a  short  time  so 
closely  imitated  Giorgione  that  his  pictures  were  some- 
times taken  for  those  of  this  master,  as  will  be  related 
below.  Increasing  in  age,  judgment  and  facility  of 
hand,  our  young  artist  executed  numerous  works  in 
fresco.  ...  At  the  time  when  he  began  tp  adopt  the 
manner  of  Giorgione,  being  then  not  more  thfn  eighteen, 
he  took  the  portrait  of  a  gentleman  of  the  Barberigo 
family,  who  was  his  friend, and  this  was  considered  very 
beautiful,  the  colouring  being  true  and  natural,  the 

82 


Venetian  Schools 

hair   so   distinctly  painted    that   each  one  could   be  Tiziano 
counted,  as  might  also  the  stitches  in  a  satin  doublet  Vecellio 
painted  in  the  same  work ;  in  a  word,  it  was  so  well 
and  carefully  done  that  it  would  have  been  taken  for 
a  work  of  Giorgione  if  Titian  had  not  written  his  name 
on  the  dark  ground." 

With  this  we  may  leave  thequestion  of  Titian's  birth 
date,  and  consider  the  exceptional  interest  attaching 
to  the  question  of  this  Barberigo  portrait.  According 
to  Mr.  Cook,  and  also,  under  reserve,  to  several  other 
eminent  authorities,  it  is  no  other  than  the  so-called 
Ariosto,  which  was  purchased  for  the  National  Gal- 
lery in  1904.  The  chief  difficulties  in  deciding  the 
question  are,  first,  whether  it  is  possible  that  a  youth 
of  eighteen  could  have  painted  such  a  masterpiece, 
second,  that  the  signature  Titianns  is  supposed  not 
to  have  been  used  by  the  artist  before  about  1520, 
and  lastly,  that  the  head,  at  any  rate,  is  decidedly  more 
in  the  manner  of  Giorgione  than  that  of  Titian.  This 
last,  of  course,  did  not  trouble  Vasari,  and  his  testi- 
mony is  therefore  all  the  more  valuable ;  but  all  diffi- 
culties vanish  if  we  accept  Mr.  Cook's  theory  that  the 
portrait  was  begun  by  Giorgione  in  1508,  was  left 
incomplete  at  his  sudden  death  in  15 10,  and  finished 
by  Titian  in  1520.  That  is  to  say,  the  head  and  general 
design  is  that  of  Giorgione,  the  marvellous  finish  of 
the  sleeve  and  other  parts  that  of  Titian. 

Of  works  left  unfinished  at  a  mas^r's  death  and 
completed  by  a  pupil  there  are  numerou  -  instances ; 
the  famous  Bacchanal  at  Alnwick  is  one  which  takes 
us  a  step  further  in  Titian's  career.  This  was  begun 
by  Giovanni  Bellini,  and  Titian  was  invited  by  the 
Duke  of  Ferrara,  in  15 16,  to  finish  it.  The  landscape 
is  entirely  his.     To  complete  the  decoration  of  the 

83 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Tiziano  apartment  in  which  the  picture  was  hung,  he  was  called 
Vecelllo  upon  to  paint  two  others  of  the  same  size,  one  the 
Triumph  of  Bacchus,  or  as  it  is  usually  called  Bacchus 
and  Ariadne  (now  in  the  National  Gallery)  and  the 
other  a  similar  subject,  the  Bacchanal,  now  in  the 
Prado  (No.  418,  formerly  450). 

Ridolfi,  in  his  life  of  Titian  characterises  our  picture 
as  one  to  whose  unparalleled  merits  he  is  inadequate 
to  do  justice;  "There  is,"  he  says,  "such  a  graceful 
expression  in  the  figure  of  Ariadne,  such  beauty  in 
the  children — so  strongly  marked  both  in  the  looks 
and  attitudes  is  the  joyous  character  of  the  licentious 
votaries  of  Bacchus — the  roundness  and  correct  draw- 
ing of  the  man  entwined  with  snakes,  the  magnificence 
of  the  sky  and  landscape,  the  sporting  play  of  the  leaves 
and  branches  of  the  most  vivid  tints,  and  the  detailed 
herbage  on  the  ground  tending  to  enliven  the  scene,  and 
the  rich  tone  of  colour  throughout,  form  altogether 
such  a  whole  that  hardly  any  other  work  of  Titian  can 
stand  in  competition  with  it." 

In  the  composition  of  the  second  picture,  The 
Bacchanal  at  Madrid,  a  number  of  the  votaries  of 
Bacchus  are  assembled  on  the  bank  of  a  rivulet,  flowing 
with  red  wine  from  a  hill  in  the  distance  ;  some  of  them 
are  distributing  the  liquor  to  their  associates,  while  a 
nymph  and  two  men  are  dancing.  The  nymph  is  sup- 
posed to  be  a  portrait  of  Violante,  Titan's  mistress,  as 
he  has  painted,  in  allusion  to  her  name,  a  violet  on  her 
breast  and  his  own  name  round  her  arm.  Her  light 
drapery  is  raised  by  the  breeze,  and  discovers  the 
beautiful  form  and  morbidezza  of  her  limbs.  In  the 
foreground  Ariadne  lies  asleep,  her  head  resting  on  a 
rich  vase  in  place  of  a  pillow.1 

1  An  old  copy  of  this  picture  is  in  the  Edinburgh  Gallery. 
84 


PLATE   XIV.— TITIAN 
PORTRAIT  SAID  TO  BE  OF  ARIOSTO 

National  Gallery,  London 


Venetian  Schools 

Cumberland  says  that  Raphael  Mengs,  who  lived  TJzsano 
long  at  Madrid  at  the  time  when  this  picture  was  in  Vecellio 
the  reception  room  of  the  New  Palace,  was  of  opinion 
that  Titian's  superior  taste  was  nowhere  more  strik- 
ingly displayed,  and  remarks  that  he  himself  could 
never  pass  by  it  without  surprise  and  admiration,  more 
particularly  excited  by  the  beauty  of  the  sleeping 
Ariadne  in  the  foreground. 

Respecting  the  merits  of  both  pictures  the  testi- 
mony of  Agostino  Carracci  should  not  be  omitted ; 
vvhen  he  viewed  them  in  the  possession  of  the  Duke 
of  Ferrara  he  declared  that  he  considered  them  the  first 
in  the  world,  and  that  no  one  could  say  he  was  ac- 
quainted with  the  most  marvellous  works  of  art  without 
having  seen  them. 

Commenting  upon  another  picture  of  Titian's 
early  period,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  delivers  himself  of 
the  following  criticisms  on  Titian  as  compared  with 
Raphael,  M  It  is  to  Titian  that  we  must  turn,"  he  says, 
"  to  find  excellence  in  regard  to  colour,  and  light  and 
shade  in  the  highest  degree.  He  was  both  the  first 
and  the  greatest  master  of  this  art ;  by  a  few  strokes 
he  knew  how  to  mark  the  general  image  and  character 
of  whatever  object  he  attempted,  and  produced  by  this 
alone  a  truer  representation  of  nature  than  his  master, 
Giovanni  Bellini,  or  any  of  his  predecessors,  who 
finished  every  hair.  His  greatest  object  was  to  ex- 
press the  general  colour,  to  preserve  the  masses  of  light 
and  shade,  and  to  give  by  opposition  the  idea  of  that 
solidity  which  is  inseparable  from  natural  objects.  .  .  . 

"  Raphael  and  Titian  seemed  to  have  looked  at 
nature  for  different  purposes  ;  they  both  had  the  power 
of  extending  their  view  to  the  whole,  but  one  looked 
only  at  the  general  effect  as  produced  by  form,  the  other 

85 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Tiziano  as  produced  by  colour.  We  cannot  refuse  Titian  the 
Vccellio  merit  of  attending  to  the  general  form  of  the  object,  as 
well  as  colour ;  but  his  deficiency  lay — a  deficiency  at 
least  when  he  is  compared  with  Raphael — in  not  pos- 
sessing the  power,  like  him,  of  correcting  the  form  of  his 
model  by  any  general  idea  of  beauty  in  his  own  mind. 
Of  this  his  St.  Sebastian  with  other  Saints  (in  the 
Vatican)  is  a  particular  instance.  This  figure  appears 
to  be  a  most  exact  representation  both  of  the  form  and 
colour  of  the  model  which  he  then  happened  to  have 
before  him,  and  has  all  the  force  of  nature,  and  the 
colouring  of  flesh  itself;  but  unluckily  the  model  was 
of  a  bad  form,  especially  the  legs.  Titian  has  with 
much  care  preserved  these  defects,  as  he  has  imitated 
the  beauty  and  brilliancy  of  the  colouring.  .  .  ." 

Of  the  Sebastian,  Vasari  says  very  much  the  same 
as  Reynolds.  "  He  is  nude,"  he  writes,  M  and  has  been 
exactly  copied  from  the  life  without  the  slightest  ad- 
mixture of  art,  no  efforts  for  the  sake  of  beauty  have 
been  sought  in  any  part — trunk  or  limbs ;  all  is  as 
nature  left  it,  so  that  it  might  seem  to  be  a  sort  of  cast 
from  the  life.  It  is  nevertheless  considered  very  fine, 
and  the  figure  of  our  Lady  with  the  infant  in  her  arms, 
whom  all  the  other  figures  are  looking  at,  is  also  ac- 
counted most  beautiful." 

Two  more  of  the  pictures  of  Titian's  earliest  period 
are  in  the  National  Gallery — the  Christ  appearing  to 
Mary  Magdalen  (No.  270),  and  the  Holy  Family 
(No.  4).  The  former  is  ascribed  to  about  the  year 
1 5 14,  partly  on  the  ground  that  the  group  of  buildings 
in  the  landscape  is  identical,  line  for  line,  with  that  in 
the  Dresden  Venus  painted  by  Giorgione  but  com- 
pleted by  Titian  after  his  death.  The  same  landscape 
also  occurs  in  the  beautiful  little  Cupid  in  the  Vienna 

86 


PLATE  XV.— TITIAN 

THE   HOLY  FAMILY 

National  Gallery,  London 


Venetian  Schools 

Academy,  and,  as  Mr  Herbert  Cook  suggests,  possibly  Tiziano 
represents  some  cherished  spot  in  Titian's  memory  con-  Vecelllo 
nected  with  his  mountain  home  at  Pieve  di  Cadore. 

The  Holy  Family,  above  mentioned,  is  a  most 
charming  example  of  the  sacra  conversazione  as  devel- 
oped by  Titian  from  the  somewhat  formal  and  austere 
conception  of  Bellini  and  his  contemporaries  into  some- 
thing eminently  characteristic  of  the  secular  side  of  his 
genius.  The  very  titles  of  two  of  his  most  beautiful 
and  most  famous  pictures  of  this  sort  proclaim  the  hold 
they  have  taken  on  the  popular  mind.  The  one  is  the 
Madonna  of  the  Cherries,  in  the  Vienna  Gallery.  The 
other  is  the  Madonna  with  the  Rabbit,  in  the  Louvre. 
In  our  picture  thedistinguishing  feature  is  the  kneeling 
shepherd,  with  his  little  water-cask  slung  on  his  belt, 
who  puts  us  at  once  in  touch  with  the  whole  scene  by 
the  simple  appeal  to  our  common  human  experience. 
Raphael  could  move  our  religious  feelings  to  revere  the 
godhead  in  the  child,  but  could  seldom,  like  Titian,  stir 
our  human  emotions  and  bring  home  to  us  that  Christ 
was  born  on  earth  for  our  sakes. 

If  this  particular  characteristic  of  Titian  were  con- 
fined to  the  pastoral  setting  of  these  Holy  Conversa- 
tions, it  might  be  taken  as  merely  accidental,  and  with- 
out further  significance  than  should  be  accorded  to  a 
youthful  fancy.  But  in  the  wonderful  Entombment \ 
now  in  the  Louvre,  in  which  he  displays  "  the  full 
splendour  of  his  early  maturity,"  the  human  element 
is  such  an  important  factor  in  the  presentment  of  the 
divine  tragedy  that  even  a  painter,  M.  Caro-Delvaille, 
must  postpone  his  description  of  the  picture  to  sen- 
tences like  these  : — "  Sur  un  ciel  tourmente,"  he  writes, 
in  phrases  which  it  is  impossible  to  render  adequately 
in  English,  "  se  profile  le  groupe  tragique.     Aucun 

87 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


7izianogeste  superflu ;  le  drame  est  intdrieur.  La  Douleur 
Vecellio  plane  dans  l'air  alourdi  du  crepuscule,  comme  une  aile 
fatal e — Jdsus  est  mort  1  Le  grand  cadavre  livide,  que 
les  apdtres  angoiss^s  soutiennent,  n'a  rien  dans  sa  ro- 
bustesse  inerte  de  la  depouille  dmacide  des  Christs 
mystiques.  Le  fils  de  Dieu  semble  un  patriarche 
douloureusement  frappe"  par  le  ddcret  d'en  haut. 

"  Une  aprete"  primitive,  ou  les  larmes  se  cachent 
comme  une  faiblesse,  communique  a  l'ceuvre  un  pathd- 
tique  si  poignant  que  le  mystere  de  la  mort  s'etend 
jusqu'a  nous. 

"  La  Vierge  et  la  Madeleine  sont  la.  Elle,  la 
Mere,  doute  de  la  rdalite,  tant  elle  souffre !  Son  regard 
fixe  sur  le  corps  cheri,  elle  ne  peut  croire  que  tout  est 
consomme.  La  pdcheresse  pitoyable  la  prend  dans  ses 
bras  pour  essayer  de  l'arracher  a  l'horreur  de  cette 
vision. 

11  Drame  humain  et  divin  !  ne  sont-ce  point  des  fils 
qui  ramenent  le  cadavre  de  leur  pere  a  la  poussiere? 
Tous  ceux  qui  passerent  par  ces  dpreuves  se  souvien- 
nent  de  ce  deuil  qui  semble  se  prolonger  dans  la  nature 
entiere." 

Titian's  first  period  maybe  said  to  end  in  1530,  by 
which  time  he  had  completed  the  famous  Peter  Martyr, 
which  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  1867.  In  1530,  too, 
Titian's  wife  died.  This  event  of  itself  need  not  be 
supposed  to  have  greatly  influenced  his  career,  as 
there  is  no  evidence  of  her  having  appealed  to  his 
artistic  nature  as  did  his  daughter  Lavinia.  As  it 
happened,  however,  a  more  certain  influence  was 
nearly  coincident  with  this  event — the  arrival  in  Venice 
of  the  notorious  Aretine,  who,  chiefly  as  it  appears, 
with  an  eye  to  business,  entered  into  the  most  intimate 
relations  with  Titian.     The  accession  of  the  sculptor 

88 


PLATE   XVI.— TITIAN 

THE  ENTOMBMENT 

Louvre,  Paris 


Venetian  Schools 

Sansovino  to  the  comradeship  earned  for  the  group  Th&iano 
the  name  of  the  Triumvirate.  Vecellio 

So  far  from  Titian  being  corrupted  by  the  society 
of  Aretine,  there  is  direct  evidence  in  one  of  the  poet's 
letters  to  him  that  he  was  not.  "You  must  come  to 
our  feast  to-night/'  he  writes,  "  but  I  may  as  well  warn 
you  that  you  had  better  leave  early,  as  I  know  how 
particular  you  are  about  certain  things."  Nor  is  there 
anything  in  the  artist's  works  of  this  next  period — 
which  we  may  roughly  date  from  1530  to  1550,  that 
betrays  a  more  serious  devotion  to  the  sensual  side  of 
life  than  can  be  accounted  for  by  the  demands  of  the 
high  and  mighty  patrons  that  Aretine  was  soon  to  find 
for  him.  As  an  artist  he  looked  upon  woman  as  a 
beautiful  creature,  as  a  man  he  most  probably  never 
troubled  about  her,  or  was  troubled  by  her.  There  is 
no  proof  that  any  of  his  pictures  are  rightly  called 
"  Titian's  mistress,"  and  we  may  conclude  that  he  was 
as  good  a  husband  and  a  father  as  was  Rubens,  who 
revelled  in  painting  woman,  or  Velasquez,  who  seems 
to  have  frankly  disliked  it.  Like  Rowlandson,  whom 
the  general  public  only  know  as  a  caricaturist,  but  who 
when  he  once  got  away  from  London  was  the  most 
pure  minded  and  poetical  artist,  so  Titian,  when  once 
dissociated  from  the  demands  of  corrupt  patrons,  like 
Philip  II.,  never  reveals  himself  as  having  fallen  under 
the  influence  of  Aretine — if  indeed  at  all.  The  Dana'e 
and  the  Venus  and  a  Musician  at  the  Prado  are  the 
only  examples  it  is  possible  to  cite — unless  it  be  the 
Venus,  to  which  popular  opinion  would  hardly  deny  its 
place  of  honour  in  the  Tribune  at  the  Uffizi. 

At  the  same  time  the  difference  in  circumstances, 
the  fuller,  richer  life  that  he  must  have  led  in  these 
years  of  patronage  and  prosperity,  accounts  for  a  cer- 

89 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Tiziano tain  "shallowness  and  complacency"  which  distin- 
Vecellio  guishes  his  work  during  this  period  as  sharply  from 
that  which  preceded  as  from  that  which  followed  it ; 
and  fine  as  is  his  accomplishment  during  these  years, 
especially  in  portraiture,  it  includes  fewer  of  those 
masterpieces  which  appeal  to  the  heart  as  much  as  to 
the  eye. 

To  1538  belongs  the  large  and  beautiful  picture  of 
the  Presentation  of  the  Virgin  Mary  in  the  Temple, 
painted  for  the  Scuola  della  Carita  in  Venice,  which  is 
now  occupied  by  the  Academy,  where  it  still  hangs,  as 
is  said,  in  its  original  place.  It  is  twenty-two  feet  in 
length,  and  contains  several  portraits,  among  which 
are  those  of  his  daughter  Lavinia  (the  Virgin,  as  is 
supposed),  Andrea  Franchescini,  grand  chancellor  of 
Venice,  in  a  scarlet  robe ;  next  him,  in  black,  Lazzaro 
Crasso,  a  lawyer,  and  certain  monks  of  the  convent 
following  them. 

We  now  find  Titian  employed  by  the  Duke  of 
Urbino  on  some  of  the  principal  works  of  this  period. 
Among  these  were  the  Ufnzi  Venus,  said  to  be  a  por- 
trait of  the  Duchess  herself.  The  Girl  in  a  Fur 
Mantle  at  Vienna,  portraits  of  the  Duke  and  of  the 
Duchess  (1537),  and  the  so-called  La  Bella  at  the 
Ufnzi.  The  so-called  Duke  of  Norfolk  at  the  Pitti, 
supposed  to  represent  the  young  Duke  Guidobaldo  of 
Urbino.  Also  the  Isabella  d'Este  at  Vienna,  and 
somewhat  earlier,  the  Cardinal  I ppolito  in  Hungarian 
dress,  at  the  Pitti ;  and  the  Daughter  of  Robert 
Strozzi,  at  Berlin. 

The  large  Ecce  Homo  in  the  Vienna  Gallery,  dated 
1543,  measuring  11  ft.  3  in.  by  7  ft.  7  in.  was  for  some 
years  in  London,  and  with  better  fortune  might  still 
be  in  this  country  if  not  in  our  national  collection.    It 

90 


Venetian  Schools 

was  one  of  the  nineteen  pictures  by  Titian  in  the  Tiziano 
wonderful  collection  of  Rubens,  which  the  Duke  oiVecellio 
Buckingham  persuaded  him  to  sell  to  him  for  a  fabu- 
lous price.  The  collection  was  shipped  to  England  in 
1625,  when  the  pictures  were  taken  to  York  House  in 
the  Strand,  and  the  statues  and  gems  to  Chelsea.  In 
1649  a  portion  of  the  collection  was  sold  at  Brussels, 
and  the  Ecce  Homo  was  purchased  there  by  the  Arch- 
duke Leopold  for  his  gallery  at  Prague,  which  now 
forms  part  of  that  at  Vienna.  The  Earl  of  Arundel 
offered  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  ^"7000  for  it — an  un- 
heard of  price,  especially  when  we  remember  the  greater 
value  of  money  at  that  time. 

With  another  masterpiece — fortunately  still  pre- 
served in  the  Prado,  though  not  entirely  uninjured  by 
fire — we  may  close  the  second  period.  This  is  the  mag- 
nificent equestrian  portrait  of  The  Emperor  Charles  V. 
which  was  painted  at  Augsburg  in  1548.  A  few  years 
later  the  Emperor  abdicated  in  favour  of  his  egregious 
son,  Philip  II.,  of  whom  Titian  painted  three  portraits 
in  succession.  The  second  of  these,  now  in  the  Prado, 
has  an  especial  interest  for  us,  inasmuch  as  it  was 
painted  for  the  benefit  or  the  enticement  of  Queen  Mary 
before  her  marriage  to  Philip.  As  might  be  expected, 
it  is  a  highly  flattering  likeness, — in  white  and  gold, 
in  half  armour.  To  quote  M.  Caro-Delvaille,  this  king 
of  auto  da  fds  and  sunken  galleys  is  here  nothing  more 
than  a  gallant  cavalier — neurasthenic  but  elegant.  For 
England  was  also  painted  the  Venus  and  Adonis,  in 
J554  J  but  unfortunately  the  original  is  now  in  Madrid, 
and  only  a  copy  in  our  National  Gallery.  However, 
the  remains  of  Philip  are  there  too,  and  not  in  West- 
minster Abbey ! 

A  copy  of  another  famous  picture  painted  by  Titian 

91 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Tiziano  for  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  was  also  in  the  collection 
Vecdlio  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  probably  brought  it 
with  him  when  he  returned  from  his  madcap  expedition 
with  Prince  Charles  to  Madrid.  It  is  described  in  his 
catalogue  as  '-  One  great  Piece  of  the  Emperor  Charles, 
a  copy  called  Titian's  Glory,  being  the  principal  in 
Spain,  now  in  the  Escurial."  This  was  the  great 
Paradise,  or  Apotheosis  of  Charles  V.  which  Charles 
took  with  him  into  Spain  at  the  time  of  his  abdication 
and  placed  in  the  monastery  of  St.  Juste,  in  Estrama- 
dura,  to  which  he  retired.  After  his  death  it  was 
removed  by  Philip  II.  to  Madrid. 

Of  the  two  versions  of  The  Crowning  with  Thorns, 
the  earlier  one  at  the  Louvre,  painted  in  1560,  is  more 
familiar  to,  and  probably  more  popular  with,  the  gen- 
eral public  than  the  much  later  one  at  Munich  painted 
in  1 57 1.  But  for  the  real  merits  of  the  two  we  need 
not  hesitate  to  accept  M.  Caro-Delvaille's  judgment, 
since  if  he  had  any  bias  it  would  be  in  favour  of  his  own 
country's  treasure.  The  former  he  characterises  as  an 
incoherent  composition,  in  which  useless  gesticulation 
diminishes  the  dramatic  effect,  while  striving  to  force 
it;  and  adds  that  all  the  false  romanticism  of  painting 
comes  from  this  sort  of  theatrical  pathos.  Of  the  other 
he  writes  "  It  was  the  picture  at  the  Louvre  which 
shocked  me  with  its  violent  declamation  and  its  forced 
blows  that  never  hit  anything.  But  here  at  Munich  a 
mystery  so  profound  broods  over  the  drama  that  the 
melodramatic  element  disappears.  The  scene  becomes 
tragic,  lamentable,  hopelessly  sad.  The  great  artist 
with  a  brush  that  trembles  in  his  aged  hands  paints  but 
the  sentiment  of  it,  to  exhale  from  his  work  like  a  plain- 
tive sigh.  The  veil  of  death  descends  and  spreads  over 
life.  .  .  .  Titian  might  seem  to  have  painted  it  as  an 

92 


Venetian  Schools 

offering  to  Rembrandt  when  he,  too,  should  feel  the  Tiziano 
approach  of  death. "  Vecellio 

Another  of  his  latest  pictures,  the  Adam  and  Eve 
in  Paradise,  is  in  the  Prado  (No.  429,  formerly  456). 
This  was  copied,  or  one  might  almost  say  travestied, 
by  Rubens  when  he  was  at  Madrid  in  1629,  and  his 
work  was  hung  in  the  same  room  with  it.  As  the 
colouring  is  of  a  lower  tone  than  is  usual  with  Titian, 
and  the  attitudes  of  the  figures  extremely  simple  and 
natural,  the  contrast  is  all  the  more  marked,  and  was 
well  expressed  by  Cumberland,  who  said  that  "  when 
we  contemplate  Titian's  picture  of  Adam  and  Eve  we 
are  convinced  they  never  wore  clothes ;  turn  to  the 
copy,  and  the  same  persons  seem  to  have  laid  theirs 
aside." 

A  more  generous  comparison  between  these  two 
painters  is  made  by  Reynolds  in  a  note  on  du  Fresnoy's 
poem  on  Painting  respecting  the  qualities  of  regularity 
and  uniformity.  "An  instance  occurs  to  me  where 
those  two  qualities  are  separately  exhibited  by  two 
great  painters,  Rubens  and  Titian :  the  picture  of 
Rubens  is  in  the  Church  of  S.  Augustine  at  Antwerp, 
the  subject  (if  that  may  be  called  a  subject  where  no 
story  is  represented)  is  the  Virgin  and  Infant  Christ 
placed  high  in  the  picture  on  a  pedestal  with  many 
saints  about  them  and  as  many  below  them,  with  others 
on  the  steps  to  serve  as  a  link  to  unite  the  upper  and 
lower  part  of  the  picture.  The  composition  of  this  pic- 
ture is  perfect  in  its  kind ;  the  artist  has  shown  the 
greatest  skill  in  composing  and  contrasting  more  than 
twenty  figures  without  confusion  and  without  crowd- 
ing; the  whole  appearing  as  much  animated  and  in 
motion  as  it  is  possible  where  nothing  is  to  be  done. 

u  The  picture  of  Titian  which  we  would  oppose  to 

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Six  Centuries  of  Fainting 


Tiziano  this  is  in  the  Church  of  the  S.  Frari  at  Venice  (the 
Vecellio  "  Pesaro  Madonna,"  where  the  two  donors  kneel  below 
the  Virgin  enthroned).  One  peculiar  character  of  this 
piece  is  grandeur  and  simplicity,  which  proceed  in  a 
great  measure  from  the  regularity  of  the  composition, 
two  of  the  principal  figures  being  represented  kneeling 
directly  opposite  to  each  other,  and  nearly  in  the  same 
attitude.  This  is  what  few  painters  would  have  had 
the  courage  to  venture  ;  Rubens  would  certainly  have 
rejected  so  unpicturesque  a  mode  of  composition  had 
it  occurred  to  him.  Both  these  pictures  are  excellent 
in  their  kind,  and  may  be  said  to  characterize  their  re- 
spective authors.  There  is  a  bustle  and  animation  in 
the  work  of  Rubens,  a  quiet  solemn  majesty  in  that  of 
Titian.  The  excellence  of  Rubens  is  the  picturesque 
effect  he  produces ;  the  superior  merit  of  Titian  is  in 
the  appearance  of  being  above  seeking  after  any  such 
"  artificial  excellence." 

The  most  important  artist  besides  Titian  who  was 
a  pupil  of  Giorgione  was  Sebastiano  del  Piombo,  as  he 
was  called — his  father's  name  was  Luciani.  But  as  two 
other  notable  influences  determined  his  career,  he  is  not 
to  be  taken  as  typical  of  the  Venetian  School  in  general 
or  that  of  Giorgione  in  particular.  Born  in  Venice  about 
the  year  1485,  he  first  studied  under  Giovanni  Bellini, 
as  appears  from  the  signature  as  well  as  from  the  style  of 
a  Pieta  by  him  in  the  Layard  collection,  which  we  may 
hopesoontosee  inthe  National  Gallery.  OfhisGiorgion- 
esque  period  there  is  only  one  important  picture  known 
to  us, thebeautifulaltar-pieceinS. Giovanni  Cristostomo 
in  Venice,  which  is  not  far  removed  from  the  richness  of 
Titian's  earlier  work.  The  picture  represents  the  mild 
and  dignified  S.  Chrysostom  seated,  reading  aloud  at  a 
desk  in  an  open  hall ;  S.  John  the  Baptist  leaning  on  his 

94 


Venetian  Schools 

cross  is  looking  attentively  at  him;  behind  him  are  two  Tiziano 
male  and  on  the  left  two  female  saints  listening  devoutly,  Vecdiio 
and  in  the  foreground  the  Virgin  looking  majestically 
out  of  the  picture  at  thespectator — a  splendid  type  of  the 
full  and  grand  Venetian  ideal  of  female  beauty  of  that 
time.  The  true  expression  of  a  Santa  Conversazione 
could  not  be  more  worthily  given  than  in  the  relation  in 
which  the  listeners  stand  to  the  reader,  and  in  glow  of 
colourthis  work  is  not  inferior  to  the  best  of  Giorgione's 
or  Titian's. 

As  early  as  1 5 10,  however,  he  not  only  left  Venice,  but 
also  his  Venetian  manner.  He  was  invited  to  Rome  by 
the  rich  banker  and  patron  of  the  arts,  Agostino  Chigi, 
where  he  met  Raphael,  and  with  astonishing  versatility 
succeeded  as  well  in  emulating  the  excellences  of  that 
master  as  he  had  those  of  Bellini  and  Giorgione.  The 
half-length  Daughter  of  Herodias  bequeathed  to  the 
National  Gallery  by  George  Salting  is  dated  15 10,  and 
in  15 1 2  he  painted  the  famous  Fornarina  in  the  Uffizi, 
which  until  the  middle  of  the  last  century  was  supposed 
to  be  a  chef  d  ozuvre  of  Raphael.  To  this  period  also 
belongs  the  S.  John  in  the  Desert,  at  the  Louvre. 

Within  thenext  seven  years  a  still  mightier  influence 
found  him,  that  of  Michelangelo,  and  how  far  he  was 
capable  of  responding  to  it  may  be  judged  by  our  great 
Raising  of  Lazarus,  painted  at  Rome  in  15 17-19  for 
Giulio  de'  Medici,  afterwards  Pope  Clement  VII.,  to  be 
placed  with  Raphael's  Transfiguration  in  the  Cathedral 
of  Narbonne.  Both  pictures  were  publicly  exhibited  in 
Rome,  and  by  some  people  Sebastiano's  was  preferred 
to  Raphael's.  According  to  Waagen  the  whole  com- 
position was  designed  by  Michelangelo,  with  whom 
Sebastiano  had  entered  into  the  closest  intimacy ;  and 
Kugler  states  that  the  group  of  Lazarus  and  those 

95 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Tiziano  around  him  was  actually  drawn  bythe  master.  However 
Vecellio  that  may  be,  we  can  hardly  fail  to  see  how  entirely  the 
Venetian  influence  is  obscured  by  that  of  the  great 
Florentine,  and  to  recognise  the  extraordinary  genius  of 
a  painter  who  could  do  something  more  than  imitate 
from  such  masters  as  Bellini,  Giorgione,  Raphael  and 
Michelangelo. 

The  last  traces  of  theVivariniinfluenceare  to  be  seen 
in  the  earlier  works  of  Lorenzo  Lotto  (1480- 1556),  who 
was  a  pupil  of  Alvise,  though  his  pictures  after  1508, 
when  he  had  left  Venice,  Treviso  and  Reccanti,  where 
he  had  been  employed,  show  the  effect  of  his  changed 
surroundings.  To  this  date  is  assigned  the  Portrait  of 
a  Young  Man,  at  Hampton  Court.  At  Rome  in  1509  he 
was  painting  with  Raphael  in  the  Vatican,  and  in  his 
next  dated  work,  the  Entombment,  at  Jesi,  the  echoes 
of  Raphael's  Disputation  and  the  School  of  Athens  are 
clear.  The  Dresden  Madonna  and  Child  with  S.  fohn 
was  probably  painted  at  Bergamo  in  15 18,  and  the 
Madonna  and  Saints,  lately  bequeathed  to  the  National 
Gallery,  is  dated  1521. 

At  Madrid  isapicture  by  him  of  A  Bride  and  Bride- 
groom dated  1523,  to  which  year  probably  belongs  the 
Family  Group  in  the  National  Gallery.  These  are  early 
instances  of  the  comparatively  rare  inclusion  of  more 
than  a  single  figure  in  a  pure  portrait.  In  our  example 
the  father  and  mother  and  two  children  are  composed 
into  a  delightful  picture,  in  which  for  once  we  may  see 
the  actual  people  of  the  time  in  something  like  their 
natural  surroundings,  instead  of  being  posed,  however 
effectively,  to  assist  in  the  representation  of  some  historic 
or  legendary  scene. 

In  1527  Lotto  was  back  again  in  Venice,  and  was 
probably  influenced  by  Palma  Vecchio  when  he  painted 

96 


Venetian  Schools 

the  superb  portrait  of  the  sculptor  Odoni,  which  is  at  Tiziano 
Hampton  Court.     A  little  later  the  influence  of  Titian  Vecellio 
is  more  visible.     Two  other  portraits  are  in  our  Na- 
tional Gallery,  those  of  the  Protonotary  Juliano  and  of 
Agostino  and  Niccolo  della  Torre. 

Bonifazio  di  Pitati  ( 1 487- 1 553),  sometimes  called 
Bonifazio  Veronese  or  Veneziano,  was  born  at  Verona, 
but  studied  in  Venice  under  Palma  Vecchio.  The  influ- 
ence of  his  native  city  distinguishes  his  work  in  some 
degree  from  the  pure  Venetian,  as  it  did  that  of  the  more 
famous  Paolo  in  later  years ;  but  the  atmosphere  created 
by  Giorgione  was  so  strong  as  to  cause  Bonifazio's 
masterpiece  (if  we  except  the  Dives  and  Lazarus  at  the 
Academy  in  Venice)  to  be  attributed  until  quite  lately 
to  Giorgione.  It  is  thus  described  by  Kugler: — "A 
picture  in  the  Brera  in  Milan,  very  deserving  of  notice, 
is  perhaps  one  of  Giorgione's  most  beautiful  works;  it 
is  historic  in  subject,  but  romantic  in  conception.  The 
subject  is  the  finding  of  Moses;  all  the  figures  are  in 
the  rich  costume  of  Giorgione's  time.  In  the  centre  the 
princess  sits  under  a  tree,  and  looks  with  surprise  at 
the  child  who  is  brought  to  her  by  a  servant.  The 
seneschal  of  the  princess,  with  knights  and  ladies,  stand 
around.  On  one  side  are  seated  two  lovers  on  the  grass, 
onthe  other  side  musiciansandsingers,  pages  withdogs, 
a  dwarf  with  an  ape,  etc.  It  is  a  picture  in  which  the 
highest  earthly  splendour  and  enjoyment  are  brought 
together,  and  the  incident  from  Scripture  only  gives  it 
a  more  pleasing  interest.  The  costume,  however  inap- 
propriate to  the  story,  disturbs  the  effect  as  little  as  in 
other  Venetian  pictures  of  the  same  period,  since  it 
refers  more  to  a  poetic  than  to  a  mere  historic  truth, 
and  the  period  itself  was  rich  in  poetry;  its  costume  too 
assiststhedisplay  of  a  romantic  splendour.  Thispicture, 

g  97 


\ 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Tiziano  with  all  its  glow  of  colour,  is  softer  than  the  earlier 
Vecellio  works  of  the  master,  and  reminds  us  of  Titian.  ..." 

The  beautiful  Santa  Conversazione  in  the  National 
Gallery,  again,  which  was  formerly  in  the  Casa  Terzi  at 
Bergamo,  was  there  attributed  to  Palma  Vecchio.  Here 
the  Virgin  in  a  rose-coloured  mantle  is  the  centre  of  the 
composition,  with  the  Child  on  her  knee,  whose  foot 
the  little  S.  John  is  bending  to  kiss.  On  the  right 
is  S.  Catherine  and  on  the  left  S.  James  the  Less  and 
S.  Jerome.  In  the  landscape  are  seen  a  shepherd  lying 
beside  his  flock,  while  other  shepherds  are  fleeing  from 
a  lion  who  has  seized  their  dog.  A  copy  of  this  com- 
position is  in  the  Academy  at  Venice. 

Oddly  enough  it  was  a  pupil  of  Bonifazio  who  em- 
ployed the  grand  Venetian  manner  in  the  humbler  and 
more  commonplace  walks  of  life,  and  neglecting  alike 
the  Sacra  Conversazione  and  the  pompous  scenes  of 
festivity,  developed  into  the  first  Italian  painter  of 
genre.  This  was  Jacopo  da  Ponte,  called  from  his 
birthplace  Bassano,  who  was  working  in  Venice  under 
Bonifazio  as  early  as  1535.  He  afterwards  returned  to 
Bassano,  and  selecting  those  scenes  in  which  he  could 
most  extensively  introduce  cottages,  peasants,  and 
animals,  he  connected  them  with  events  from  sacred 
history  or  mythology.  A  peculiar  feature  by  which  his 
pictures  may  be  known  is  the  invariable  and  apparently 
intentional  hiding  of  the  feet  of  his  figures,  for  which 
purpose  sheep  and  cattle  and  household  utensils  are 
introduced.  He  confines  himself  to  a  bold,  straight- 
forward imitation  of  familiar  objects,  united,  however, 
with  pleasing  composition,  colour,  and  chiaroscuro. 
His  colours,  indeed,  sparkle  like  gems,  particularly  the 
greens,  in  which  he  displays  a  brilliancy  quite  peculiar 
to  himself.    His  lights  are  boldly  infringed  on  the 

98 


Venetian  Schools 

objects,  and  are  seldom  introduced  except  on  prominent  Tiziatto 
parts  of  the  figures.  In  accordance  with  this  treatment  Vecellio 
his  handling  is  spirited  and  peculiar,  somewhat  in  the 
manner  of  Rembrandt;  and  what  on  close  inspection 
appears  dark  and  confused,  forms  at  a  distance  the  very 
strength  and  magic  of  his  colouring.  The  picture  of  the 
Good  Samaritan  in  the  National  Gallery  is  a  good 
example,  and  was  formerly  in  the  collection  of  Reynolds, 
who  it  is  said  always  kept  it  in  his  studio.  The  Portrait 
of  a  Man  (No.  173)  is  excelled  by  that  of  an  Old  Man 
at  Berlin. 


Ill 

PAOLO  VERONESE  AND  IL  TINTORETTO 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Venetian  artists  of  the  second 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century  equalled  in  their  collective 
excellence  the  great  masters  of  the  first,  but  in  single 
instances  they  are  frequently  entitled  to  rank  beside 
them.  At  the  head  of  these  is  Jacopo  Robusti  (15 18- 
1594),  called  II  Tintoretto  (the  dyer),  in  allusion  to 
his  father's  trade.  He  was  one  of  the  most  vigorous 
painters  in  all  the  history  of  art;  one  who  sought  rather 
than  avoided  the  greatest  difficulties,  and  who  possessed 
a  true  feeling  for  animation  and  grandeur.  If  his  works 
do  not  always  charm,  it  should  be  imputed  to  the  foreign 
and  non-Venetian  element  which  he  adopted,  but  never 
completely  mastered;  and  also  to  the  times  in  which  he 
lived,  when  Venetian  art  had  fallen  somewhat  into  the 
mistaken  way  of  colossal  and  rapid  productiveness.  His 
off-hand  style,  as  Kugler  calls  it,  is  always  full  of  grand 
and  significant  detail,  and  with  a  few  patches  of  colour 
he  sometimes  achieves  the  liveliest  forms  and  expres- 

99 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Paolo  Vero-  sions.  But  he  fails  in  that  artistic  arrangement  of  the 
nese  and  //whole  and  in  that  nobility  of  motives  in  the  parts  which 
Tintoretto  are  necessary  exponents  of  a  really  high  ideal.  H  is  com- 
positions are  achieved  less  by  finely  studied  degrees  of 
participation  in  the  principal  action  than  by  great 
masses  of  light  and  shade.  Attitudes  and  movements 
are  taken  immediately  from  common  life,  not  chosen 
from  the  best  models.  With  Titian  the  highest  ideal  of 
earthly  happiness  in  existence  is  expressed  by  beauty; 
with  Tintoretto  in  mere  animal  strength,  sometimes  of 
an  almost  rude  character. 

For  a  short  time  he  was  a  pupil  of  Titian,  but  for 
some  unknown  reason  he  soon  left  him,  and  struck  out 
for  himself.  In  the  studio  which  he  occupied  in  his 
youth  he  had  inscribed,  as  a  definition  of  the  style  he 
professed,  "The  drawing  of  Michelangelo,  the  colour- 
ing of  Titian."  He  copied  the  works  of  the  latter,  and 
also  designed  from  casts  of  Florentine  and  antique 
sculpture,  particularly  by  lamplight — as  did  Romney 
a  couple  of  centuries  later — to  exercise  himself  in  a 
more  forcible  style  of  relief.  He  also  made  models  for 
his  works,  which  he  lighted  artificially,  or  hungup  in  his 
room,  in  order  to  master  perspective.  By  these  means 
he  united  great  strength  of  shadow  with  the  Venetian 
colouring,  which  gives  a  peculiar  character  to  his 
pictures,  and  is  very  successful  when  limited  to  the 
direct  imitation  of  nature.  But  apart  from  the  impossi- 
bility of  combining  two  such  totally  different  excel- 
lences as  the  colouring  of  Titian  and  the  drawing  of 
Michelangelo,  it  appears  that  Tintoretto's  acquaintance 
with  the  works  of  the  latter  only  developed  his  tendency 
to  a  naturalistic  style.  That  which  with  Michelangelo 
was  the  symbol  of  a  higher  power  in  nature  was  adopted 
by  Tintoretto  in  its  literal  form.  Most  of  his  defects, 

ioo 


Venetian  Schools 

it  is  probable,  arose  from  his  indefatigable  vigour,  Paolo  Vero- 
which  earned  for  him  the  nickname  of  //  Furioso.  nesc  and  II 
Sebastian  del  Piombo  said  that  Tintoretto  could  paint  Tintoretto 
as  much  in  two  days  as  would  occupy  him  two  years. 
Other  sayings  were  that  he  had  three  brushes,  one  of 
gold,  one  of  silver,  and  a  third  of  brass,  and  that  if  he 
was  sometimes  equal  to  Titian  he  was  often  inferior  to 
Tintoretto !  In  this  last  category  Kugler  puts  two  of 
his  earliest  works,  the  enormous  Last  Judgment,  and 
The  Golden  Calf,  in  the  church  of  S.  Maria  dell'  Orto, 
while  on  his  much  later  Last  Supper  he  is  still  more 
severe.  "Nothing  more  utterly  derogatory,"  he  writes, 
"both  to  the  dignity  of  art  and  to  the  nature  of  the  sub- 
ject can  be  imagined.  S.  John  is  seen  with  folded  arms, 
fast  asleep,  while  others  of  the  Apostles  with  the  most 
burlesque  gestures  are  asking,  'Lord,  is  it  I?'  Another 
Apostle  is  uncovering  a  dish  which  stands  on  the  floor 
without  remarking  that  a  cat  has  stolen  in  and  is  eating 
from  it.  A  second  is  reaching  towards  a  flask;  a  beggar 
sits  by,  eating.  Attendants  fill  up  the  picture.  To  judge 
from  an  overthrown  chair  the  scene  appears  to  have 
been  a  revel  of  the  lowest  description.  It  is  strange  that 
a  painter  should  venture  on  such  a  representation  of 
this  subject  scarcely  a  hundred  years  after  the  creation 
of  Leonardo  da  Vinci's  Last  Supper" 

It  was  in  1548,  when  but  thirty  years  old,  that 
Tintoretto  first  became  famous,  with  the  large  Miracle 
of  S.  Mark,  now  in  the  Venice  Academy.  This  is 
perhaps  his  finest  as  well  as  his  most  celebrated  work; 
but  the  greatest  monument  to  his  industry  and  general 
ability  is  the  Scuola  di'  San  Rocco,  where  he  began  to 
work  in  1560  under  a  contract  to  produce  three  pictures 
a  year  for  an  annuity  of  a  hundred  ducats.  In  all  there 
are  sixty-two  of  his  pictures  in  this  building,  the  greater 

101 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Paolo  Vero-  part  of  them  very  large,  the  figures  throughout  being 
nese  and  11  of  the  size  of  life.  The  Crucifixion,  painted  in  1565,  is 
Tintoretto  the  most  extensive  of  them,  and  on  the  whole  the  most 
perfect.  In  1590,  four  years  before  his  death,  he  com- 
pleted the  enormous  Paradise  in  the  Sala  del  Gran 
Consiglio,  measuring  seventy-four  feet  in  length  and 
thirty  in  height. 

In  the  National  Gallery  we  have  three  characteristic 
examples,  fortunately  on  a  smaller  scale,  namely,  the 
S.  George  on  a  white  horse,  which,  with  its  greyish  flesh 
tones  and  the  blue  of  the  princess's  mantle,  is  cooler 
in  tone  than  the  generality  of  his  pictures;  Christ 
washing  the  Disciples'  Feet,  and  the  very  beautiful  and 
radiant  Origin  of  the  Milky  Way,  purchased  from  Lord 
Darnley  in  1890.  At  Hampton  Court  a  still  finer 
example,  The  Nine  Muses,  is  so  discoloured  by  age  and 
hung  in  such  a  difficult  light  that  it  is  impossible  to 
enjoy  its  full  beauty. 

Paolo  Caliari,  better  known  as  Veronese,  was 
born  ten  years  later  than  Tintoretto,  and  died  six  years 
before  him  (1528- 1588).  He  studied  in  his  native  city 
of  Verona  till  he  was  twenty,  and  after  working  for 
some  time  at  Mantua  he  came  to  Venice  in  1555,  where 
he  was  quickly  recognised  by  Titian  and  by  Sansovino, 
the  sculptor  and  Director  of  Public  Buildings,  and  was 
commissioned  in  that  year  to  paint  a  Coronation  of  the 
Virgin  and  other  works  in  the  church  of  S.  Sebastian. 
The  Martyrdom  of  S.  Giustino,  now  in  the  Uffizi,  and 
the  Madonna  and  Child 'in  the  Louvre  are  also  among 
his  earlier  works.  As  early  as  1562  he  was  at  work  on 
the  enormous  Feast  at  Cana,  now  in  the  Louvre,  and  a 
similar  work  at  Dresden  is  of  the  same  date.  In  1564 
he  went  to  Rome,  where  he  studied  the  works  of 
Raphael  and  Michelangelo.  On  his  return  to  Venice  in 

102 


PLATE  XVII.— TINTORETTO 
ST  GEORGE  AND  THE  DRAGON 

National  Gallery,  London 


t 


Venetian  Schools 

1565 — after  visiting  Verona,  where  he  painted  in  his  Paolo  Vero- 
parish  church,  and  also  married — he  was  employed  tonescand  II 
decorate  the  Ducal  Palace,  but  much  of  his  best  work  Tintoretto 
there  was  destroyed  by  fire.  Two  of  his  most  important 
works  completed  before  1573  are  in  the  Academy  at 
Venice,  The  Battle  of  Lepanto  and  the  Feast  in  the 
House  of  Levi.  In  this  last  he  incurred  strictures  from 
the  Inquisition  more  severe  than  those  of  Kugler  upon 
Tintoretto's  Last  Supper,  and  possibly  with  as  much 
reason,   it   being   objected   that   the   introduction   of 
German  soldiery,  buffoons,  and  a  parrot  was  "irre- 
ligious." His  Family  of  Darius,  now  in  the  National 
Gallery,  was  one  of  his  latest  works. 

Veronese,  even  more  than  Titian,  whom  in  colour- 
ing he  sought  to  emulate,  and  Tintoretto,  whom  in  this 
respect  he  certainly  excelled,  expresses  the  spirit  of  the 
Venetians  of  his  time — a  powerful  and  noble  race  of 
human  beings,  as  Kugler  calls  them,  elate  with  the 
consciousness  of  existence,  and  in  full  enjoyment  of  all 
that  renders  earth  attractive.  By  the  splendour  of  his 
colour,  assisted  by  rich  draperies  and  other  materials, 
by  a  very  clear  an  d  transparent  treatment  of  the  shadows, 
he  infused  a  magic  into  his  great  canvases  which  sur- 
passes almost  all  the  other  masters  of  the  Venetian 
School.  Never  had  the  pomp  of  colour,  on  a  large  scale, 
been  so  exalted  and  glorified  as  in  his  works.  This,  his 
peculiar  quality,  is  most  decidedly  and  grandly  de- 
veloped in  scenes  of  worldly  splendour;  he  loved  to 
paint  festive  subjects  for  the  refectories  of  rich  convents, 
suggested  of  course  from  particular  passages  in  the 
Scriptures,  but  treated  with  the  greatest  freedom,  especi- 
ally as  regards  the  costume,  which  is  always  of  his  own 
time.  Instead,  therefore,  of  any  religious  sentiment,  we 
are  presented  with  a  display  of  the  most  cheerful  human 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Paolo  Vero-  scenes  and  the  richest  worldly  splendour.  That  which 
nese  and  11  distinguishes  him  from  Tintoretto,  and  which  in  his 
Tintoretto  later  period,  after  the  death  of  Titian  and  Michelangelo, 
earned  for  him  the  rank  of  the  first  living  master,  was 
that  beautiful  vitality,  that  poetic  feeling,  which  as  far 
as  it  was  possible  he  infused  into  a  declining  period  of 
art.  At  the  same  time  it  becomes  more  and  more  evident, 
as  our  attention  is  turned  to  the  deeper  and  nobler  spirit 
of  the  earlier  masters  in  Venice,  that  the  beauty  of  his 
figures  is  more  addressed  to  the  senses  than  to  the  soul, 
and  that  his  naturalistic  tendencies  are  often  allowed  to 
run  wild. 

The  most  celebrated,  and  as  it  happens  the  most 
historically  interesting,  of  his  great  pictures  is  the  Feast 
at  Cana,  in  the  Louvre,  measuring  thirty  feet  wide  and 
twenty  feet  high.  This  was  formerly  in  the  refectory  of 
S.  Giorgio  Maggiore  in  Venice.  The  scene  is  a  brilliant 
atrium,  surrounded  by  majestic  pillars.  The  tables  at 
which  the  guests  are  seated  form  three  sides  of  a  par- 
allelogram. The  guests  are  supposed  to  be  almost 
entirely  contemporary  portraits,  so  that  the  figures  of 
Christ  and  His  mother,  of  themselves  insignificant 
enough,  lose  even  more  in  the  general  interest  of  the 
subject.  Servants  occupy  the  foreground,  while  on  the 
raised  balustrades  and  the  balconies  of  distant  houses 
are  innumerable  onlookers.  The  most  remarkable 
feature  of  the  whole  composition  is  a  group  of  musicians 
in  the  centre  of  the  foreground,  which  are  portraits  of 
the  artist  himself  and  Tintoretto,  playing  on  violon- 
cellos, and  Titian,  in  a  red  robe,  with  the  contra-bass. 

Christ  in  the  House  of  Simon,  the  Magdalen  wash- 
ing His  feet,  is  another  scarcely  less  gigantic  picture  in 
the  Louvre;  but  it  is  much  simpler  in  arrangement,  and 
is  distinguished  by  the  fineness  of  the  heads,  especially 

104 


Venetian  Schools 

that  of  the  Christ.  An  interesting  piece  of  technical  Paolo  Vero- 
criticism  on  the  Feast  at  Cana  occurs  in  Reynolds's  nese  and  11 
Eighth  Discourse :—  Tintoretto 

"Another  instance  occurs  to  me,"  he  says,  "where 
equal  liberty  may  be  taken  in  regard  to  the  management 
of  light.  Though  the  general  practice  is  to  make  a  large 
mass  about  the  middle  of  the  picture  surrounded  by 
shadow,  the  reverse  may  be  practised,  and  the  spirit  of 
rule  may  still  bepreserved.  .  .  .  In  the  great  composition 
of  Paul  Veronese,  the  Marriage  at  Cana,  the  figures  are 
for  the  most  part  in  half  shadow;  the  great  light  is  in  the 
sky;  and  indeed  the  general  effect  of  this  picture,  which 
is  so  striking,  is  no  more  than  what  we  often  see  in  land- 
scapes, in  small  pictures  of  fairs  and  country  feasts;  but 
those  principles  of  light  and  shadow,  being  transferred 
to  a  large  scale,  to  a  space  containing  near  a  hundred 
figures  as  large  as  life,  and  conducted  to  all  appearance 
with  as  much  facility  and  with  an  attention  as  steadily 
fixed  upon  the  whole  together  as  if  it  were  a  small  picture 
immediately  under  the  eye,  the  work  justly  excites  our 
admiration;  the  difficulty  being  increased  as  the  extent 
is  enlarged." 

With  the  death  of  the  great  Venetians,  Titian, 
Tintoretto,  and  Paul  Veronese,  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  history  of  Italian  painting  of  the 
first  rank  comes  to  an  end.  In  Florence,  the  imitation 
of  Michelangelo  was  the  chief  object  striven  after,  and, 
as  might  be  expected,  the  attempt  was  not  eminently 
successful.  The  greater  number  of  the  Italian  paintersof 
the  early  seventeenth  century  who  attained  any  fame  are 
known  by  the  name  of  Eclectics,  from  their  having  en- 
deavoured, instead  of  imitating  any  one  of  their  great 
predecessors,  to  select  and  unite  the  best  qualities  of 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Paolo  Vero-  each,  without,  however,  excluding  the  direct  study  of 

nese  and  II  nature.   The  fallacy  of  this  aim,  when  carried  to  an 

Tintoretto  extreme,  is,  of  course,  that  the  greatness  of  the  earlier 

masters  consisted  really  in  their  individual  and  peculiar 

qualities,  and  to  endeavour  to  unite  characteristics 

essentially  different  involves  a  contradiction. 

The  most  important  of  the  Eclectic  schools  was 
that  of  the  Carracci,  at  Bologna,  which  was  founded 
by  Lodovico  Carracci  (c.  1555-16 19),  a  scholar  of 
Prospero  Fontana  and  Passignano  at  Florence.  In  his 
youth  he  was  nicknamed  "the  ox,"  partly  from  his 
slowness,  but  possibly  also  for  his  study  of  long- 
forgotten  methods,  by  which  he  arrived  at  the  decision 
that  reform  was  necessary  to  counteract  the  independ- 
ence of  the  mannerists.  He  therefore  obtained  the 
assistance  of  his  two  nephews,  Agostino  and  Annibale 
Carracci,  sons  of  a  tailor,  and  in  concert  with  them 
opened  an  academy  at  Bologna  in  1589.  This  he 
furnished  with  casts,  drawings,  and  engravings,  and 
provided  living  models  and  gave  instruction  in  per- 
spective, anatomy,  etc.  In  spite  of  opposition  this 
academy  became  more  and  more  popular,  and  before 
long  all  the  other  schools  of  art  in  Bologna  were  closed. 

The  principles  of  their  teaching  was  succinctly 
expressed  in  a  sonnet  written  by  Agostino,  in  substance 
as  follows: — "Let  him  who  wishes  to  be  a  good  painter 
acquire  the  design  of  Rome,  Venetian  action  and 
chiaroscuro,  the  dignified  colouring  of  Lombardy  (that 
is  to  say,  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci),  the  terrible  manner  of 
Michelangelo,  Titian's  truth  and  nature,  the  sovereign 
purity  of  Correggio,  and  the  perfect  symmetry  of 
Raphael.  The  decorum  and  well-grounded  study  of 
Tibaldi,  the  invention  of  the  learned  Primaticcio,  and 
a  little  of  the  grace  of  Parmigiano." 

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Venetian  Schools 

This  "patchwork  ideal,"  as  Kugler  calls  it,  was,  Paolo  Vero- 
however,  but  a  transition  step  in  the  history  of  the  nut  and  11 
Carracci  and  their  art.  In  the  prime  of  their  activity  Tintoretto 
they  threw  off  a  great  deal  of  their  eclecticism,  and 
attained  an  independence  of  their  own.  The  merit  of 
Lodovico  is  chiefly  that  of  a  reformer  and  a  teacher, 
and  the  pictures  by  Agostino  are  few  and  of  no  great 
account.  But  in  Annibale  we  find  much  more  than 
imitation  of  the  characteristics  of  great  masters.  In  his 
earlier  works  there  are  rather  obvious  traces  of  Correggio 
and  Paul  Veronese,  but  under  the  influence  of  the 
works  of  Raphael  and  Michelangelo  and  of  the  antique, 
as  he  understood  it,  he  developed  a  style  of  his  own. 
Though  in  recent  years  he  is  a  little  out  of  fashion  with 
the  public,  there  is  no  question  about  his  having  a 
place  among  the  greater  artists.  To  show  how  opinion 
can  change,  I  venture  to  quote  a  passage  from  a  letter 
written  to  me  on  the  subject  of  Carracci's  The  Three 
Maries,  lately  presented  to  the  National  Gallery  by  the 
Countess  of  Carlisle: — "I  saw  the  gallery  at  Castle 
Howard  in  1850.  The  Three  Maries  was  then  still 
regarded  as  one  of  the  great  pictures  of  the  world ;  and 
they  told  the  story  of  how  Lord  Carlisle  and  Lord 
Ellesmere  and  Lord ,  who  shared  the  Paris  pur- 
chases [after  the  Peace  of  1815]  between  them,  had 
to  cast  lots  for  this,  because  it  was  thought  to  be  worth 
more  than  all  the  rest  of  the  spoil." 

The  most  important,  or  at  any  rate  one  of  the  most 
popular,  of  the  pupils  of  Carracci  was  Domenico 
Zampieri,  commonly  called  Domenichino  (1581-1641). 
If  we  are  less  enthusiastic  about  him  at  the  present,  it 
may  still  be  remembered  that  Constable  particularly 
admired  him,  but  it  is  significant  that  the  four  examples 
in  the  National  Gallery  are  numbered  48,  75,  77  and 

107 


X 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Paolo  Vero-  85 — there  is  no  more  recent  acquisition.  He  had  great 

nese  and  II  facility,  and  his  compositions — not  always  original — are 

Tintoretto  treated  with  great  charm  if  with  no  real  depth.   His 

most  famous  picture,  the  Communion  of  S.  Jerome, 

now  in  the  Vatican,  is  closely  imitated  from  Agostino 

Carracci's. 

Guido  Reni  (1575- 1 642),  even  more  popular  in  the 
eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries  thanDomeni- 
chino,  was  as  skilful  in  some  respects,  but  hardly  as 
admirable.  The  Ecce  Homo,  bequeathed  by  Samuel 
Rogers  to  the  National  Gallery,  is  an  excellent  example 
of  his  ability  to  charm  the  sentimentalist,  and  if  ever 
there  should  be  a  popular  revival  of  taste  in  the  direction 
of  the  now  neglected  school  of  the  Carracci,  he  will 
possibly  resume  all  the  honour  formerly  paid  to  him. 
The  same  can  hardly  be  predicted  for  the  far  inferior 
Carlo  Maratti,  Guercino,  and  Carlo  Dolce. 

Space  forbids  me  more  than  the  bare  mention  in 
these  pages  of  the  brilliant  revival  of  painting  in  Venice 
during  the  earlier  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  by 
Antonio  Canale  (1697- 1768),  Giovanni  Battista 
Tiepolo  (1692- 1 769),  Pietro  Longhi  (1702-1785),  and 
Francesco  Guardi  (17 12-1793).  Charming  as  their 
excellent  accomplishments  were,  they  must  give  place 
to  more  important  claims  awaiting  our  attention  in 
other  countries. 


108 


SPANISH  SCHOOL 

One  of  the  sensations  of  the  Exhibition  of  Spanish  Spanish 
Old  Masters  at  the  Grafton  Gallery  in  the  autumn  of  School 
191 3  was  an  altar  panel,  dated  1250,  which  was  acquired 
by  Mr  Roger  Fry  in  Paris,  and  catalogued  as  of  the 
"Early  Catalan  School."  In  view  of  the  fact  that  this 
picture  is  "certainly  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  very 
oldest  of  primitive  pictures  painted  on  wood  in  any 
country  ...  a  decade  earlier  than  the  picture  by 
Margaritone  in  the  National  Gallery,"  it  seems  some- 
what dogmatic  to  assert  that  while  retaining  a  strongly 
Byzantine  character  "the  style  is  distinctly  that  of 
Catalonia."  What  was  the  style  of  Catalonia? 

So  far  as  the  history  of  the  art  is  concerned,  the 
chapter  on  Spain  is,  with  one  exception,  a  very  short 
and  a  singularly  uninteresting  one,  whether  Mr  Fry's 
panel  was  painted  in  Catalonia  or  whether  it  was  not; 
and  in  spite  of  every  effort  to  find  in  this  uncongenial 
country  that  expansion  of  painting  that  might  reason- 
ably have  been  expected  to  flow  from  Italy  and  moisten 
its  barren  soil  for  the  production  of  so  wonderful  a 
genius  as  Velasquez,  there  is  positively  nothing  earlier 
than  Velasquez,  and  not  very  much  after  him,  that  has 
more  than  what  we  may  call  a  documentary  interest. 
While  in  Italy  or  the  Netherlands  the  names  of  scores 
of  painters  earlier  than  the  seventeenth  century  are 
endeared  to  us  by  the  recollection  of  the  works  they 

109 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Spanish  have  left  us,  the  enumeration  of  those  of  the  few 
School  Spaniards  of  whom  we  have  any  knowledge  awakens 
no  such  thrill,  and  if  we  have  ever  heard  of  them,  their 
works  mean  little  more  to  us  than  their  names.  Only 
when  we  come  within  touch  of  Velasquez  does  our 
interest  awaken — as  in  the  case  of  Ribera  and  Zurbaran 
— and  that  is  less  because  of  them  than  because  of 
Velasquez.  El  Greco  was  not  a  Spaniard  by  birth,  but 
a  Cretan;  and  if  he  were  ranged  with  the  Italians,  to 
whom  he  more  properly  belongs,  he  would  scarcely  be 
more  famous  than  some  Bolognese  masters  whose 
names  are  now — or  perhaps  we  ought  to  say,  at  the 
present  moment — almost  forgotten.  The  announcement 
that  one  of  his  portraits  has  been  sold  to  an  American 
for  ,£30,000  is  of  commercial  rather  than  of  artistic 
interest. 

If  one  had  to  sum  up  the  career  and  the  art  of 
Velasquez  in  a  sentence,  it  might  be  done  by  calling 
him  a  Court  painter  who  never  flattered.  After  record- 
ing his  life  from  the  time  when  he  left  his  master 
Pacheco  to  enter  the  service  of  Philip  IV.  to  the  day  that 
he  died  in  it,  we  shall  find  that  only  a  bare  percentage 
of  his  work  was  not  commissioned  by  the  king ;  and 
in  all  his  pictures  which  were  not  simply  portraits  there 
is  little  if  anything  to  be  found  which  is  not  as  literal 
and  truthful  a  presentment  of  the  model  in  front  of  him 
as  the  life-like  representations  of  Philip  and  those 
about  his  Court,  of  which  the  supreme  quality  is  that 
of  living  resemblance,  or  to  put  it  in  .more  general 
terms,  vivid  realism.  Gifted  as  he  must  have  been  with 
an  extraordinary  vision  and  a  still  rarer,  if  not  unique, 
ability  to  put  down  on  canvas  what  he  saw,  he  con- 
fined himself  entirely  within  the  limits  of  actuality, 
and  thereby  attained  to  heights  which  his  great  con- 

110 


Spanish  School 


temporaries  Rubens  and  Rembrandt  in  their  noblest  Spanish 
flights  of  imagination  never  reached.  School 

Velasquez  was  baptised  on  the  6th  of  June  1599,  in 
the  church  of  S.  Peter  at  Seville.  He  was  the  son  of 
well-to-do  parents  ;  his  father,  a  native  of  Seville,  was 
named  Juan  Rodriguez  de  Silva,  his  mother  Geronima 
Velasquez.  At  thirteen  years  old  he  had  displayed  so 
strong  an  inclination  towards  painting  that  he  was  put 
to  study  under  Francisco  de  Herrera,  then  the  most 
considerable  painter  in  Spain  (his  son,  also  Francisco, 
was  the  painter  of  the  Christ  Disputing  with  the 
Doctors,  in  the  National  Gallery),  but  owing  to  Herrera' s 
violent  temper  Velasquez  was  shortly  transferred  to 
the  studio  of  Francisco  Pacheco,  whose  daughter  he 
eventually  married. 

Pacheco  who  was,  besides  being  an  accomplished 
artist,  a  man  of  literary  tastes,  and  much  sought  after  in 
Seville  by  the  more  intellectual  class  of  society,  was  ex- 
ceedingly proud  of  his  pupil,  and  said  of  him  that  he  was 
induced  to  bestow  the  hand  of  his  daughter  upon  him 
' '  by  the  rectitude  of  his  conduct,  the  purity  of  his  morals, 
and  his  great  talents,  and  from  the  high  expectation  he 
entertained  of  his  natural  abilities  and  transcendent 
genius,"  adding  that  the  honour  of  having  been  his  in- 
structor was  far  greater  than  that  of  being  his  father-in- 
law,  and  that  he  felt  it  no  demerit  to  be  surpassed  by  so 
brilliant  a  pupil. 

In  1649  Pacheco  published  a  book  on  painting,  in 
which  we  are  told  that  the  first  attempts  of  Velasquez 
were  studies  in  still  life,  or  simple  compositions  of 
actual  figures,  called  bodegones  in  Spanish,  of  which 
we  have  a  fair  example  at  the  National  Gallery  in  the 
Christ  at  the  House  of  Martha.  Sir  Frederick  Cook, 
at   Richmond,  has  another,  an  Old  Woman  Frying 

in 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Spanish  Eggs,  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  two  more,  of  which 

School  The  Water  Carrier  of  Seville  is  probably  the  summit  of 

the  young  painter's  achievement  before  he  left  Seville, 

in  1623,  and  entered  the  service  of  Philip  IV.  as  Court 

painter. 

His  first  portrait  of  the  king  was  the  magnificent 
whole  length  in  the  Prado  Gallery,  now  numbered  1 182, 
standing  in  front  of  a  table  with  a  letter  in  his  right 
hand.  No.  1 183  is  the  head  of  the  same  portrait,  pos- 
sibly done  as  a  study  for  it.  Philip  was  so  pleased  with 
this  that  he  ordered  all  existing  portraits  of  himself  to 
be  removed  from  the  palace,  and  appointed  Velasquez 
exclusively  as  his  painter. 

Another  of  his  earliest  successes  at  Court  was  the 
whole  length  portrait  of  the  king's  brother,  Don  Carlos, 
holding  a  glove  in  his  right  hand ;  and  the  picture  now 
in  the  Museum  at  Rouen  of  A  Geographer'^  probably 
of  this  date. 

In  1628,  when  Velasquez  was  still  quite  young,  and 
had  fallen  under  no  influence  save  that  of  Pacheco  and 
the  school  of  Seville,  he  was  charged  by  the  king  to 
entertain  Rubens,  who  came  to  the  Spanish  Court  on  a 
diplomatic  mission,  and  show  him  all  the  treasures  in 
the  palace.  If  any  one  could  influence  Velasquez,  we 
might  suppose  it  would  have  been  Rubens,  who  was  not 
only  a  great  painter,  but  a  man  of  the  most  captivating 
manners  and  disposition,  ever  ready  to  help  younger 
artists.  But  not  only  did  he  have  no  perceptible  effect 
on  the  style  of  Velasquez,  but  in  the  picture  of  The 
Topers,  which  must  have  been  painted  while  Rubens 
was  at  Madrid,  or  very  shortly  after  he  left,  we  can  al- 
most see  a  determination  not  to  be  influenced  by  him; 
for  the  subject  was  a  favourite  one  of  Rubens's,  and  yet 
there  is  nothing  in  this  most  realistic  presentment  of 

112 


PLATE  XVIII.— VELAZQUEZ 

THE   INFANTE  PHILIP   PROSPER 

Imperial  Gallery,    Vienna 


Spanish  School 


actual  figures  under  the  title  of  Bacchus  and  his  votaries  Spanish 
which  has  anything  at  all  in  common  with  the  florid  School 
and  imaginative  compositions  of  the  Flemish  painter. 
Velasquez  had  begun  as  a  realist,  and  a  realist  he  was 
to  continue  till  the  end  of  his  days. 

Shortly  after  painting  this  picture  he  left  his  native 
country  for  the  first  time,  and  visited  Venice  and  Rome. 
At  Venice  he  made  copies  of  Tintoretto's  Last  Supper 
and  Crucifixion-,  but  little  if  any  of  Tintoretto's  influ- 
ence is  to  be  seen  in  the  two  pictures  he  painted  in  Rome 
— The  Forge  of  Vulcan  and Joseph 's  Coat,  both  of  which 
are  still  as  realistic  as  ever  in  treatment,  though  show- 
ing great  advances  in  technical  skill.  Soon  after  his 
return  to  Spain  in  1 631,  he  probably  painted  the  magni- 
ficent whole  length  Philip  IV.  in  the  National  Gallery, 
which  compares  so  well,  on  examination  with  the  more 
popular  and  showy  Admiral  Pulido  Pareja  purchased 
some  years  ago  from  Longford  Castle.  Senor  Beruete, 
who  has  studied  the  work  of  Velasquez  more  closely 
and  more  intelligently  than  any  one  else,  considers  that 
whereas  there  is  not  a  single  touch  upon  the  former  that 
is  not  from  the  brush  of  Velasquez,  the  latter  cannot  be 
properly  attributed  to  him  at  all — any  more  than  can 
another  popular  favourite,  the  Alexandro  del  Borro  in 
the  Berlin  Gallery,  now  given  to  Bernard  Strozzi. 

To  this  period  maybe  also  assigned  the  Christ  at  the 
Column  in  the  National  Gallery,  a  picture  which  though 
not  at  first  sight  attractive,  is  nevertheless  as  fine  in  tech- 
nique,andinsentiment,asanyother  picture  in  the  Span- 
ish room,  and  deserves  far  more  attention  than  is  usually 
given  to  it.  Its  simple  realism  and  its  pathetic  sweetness 
are  qualities  which  are  wanting  in  many  a  more  showy 
or  sensational  composition,  and  the  more  it  is  studied 
the  nearer  we  find  we  are  getting  to  the  real  excellences 

h  113 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Spanish  that  distinguish  Velasquez  from  any  painter  who  has 
School ever  lived.  The  Crucifixion  at  the  Prado  is  perhaps 
more  wonderful,  but  the  familiar  subject  helps  the 
imagination  of  the  spectator  to  admire  it,  whereas  the 
unfamiliar  setting  of  our  picture  is  apt  at  first  sight 
to  repel. 

The  most  important  composition  undertaken  by- 
Velasquez  in  this  middle  period  of  his  career — that  is  to 
say  between  his  two  visits  to  Italy  in  1629  and  1649 — is 
the  famous  Surrender  of  Breda,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes 
called,  The  Lances.  Soon  after  his  arrival  in  Madrid  he 
had  once  painted  an  historical  subject,  The  Expulsion 
of  the  Moors,  in  competition  with  his  rivals  who  had 
asserted  that  he  could  paint  nothing  but  heads.  In  this 
competition  the  prize  was  awarded  to  him,  but  as  the 
picture  has  perished  we  are  unable  to  judge  of  its  merits 
for  ourselves.  But  apart  from  this,  and  such  unimportant 
groups  of  figures  as  we  have  mentioned,  he  had  been 
occupied  wholly  in  painting  single  portraits,  and  it  is  a 
marvellous  proof  of  his  genius  that  he  should  produce 
such  a  masterpiece  of  composition  as  The  Lances  with 
so  little  practice  in  this  branch  of  his  art.  Here,  at  least, 
we  might  have  expected  to  trace  the  influence  of  Rubens, 
but  there  is  actually  no  sign  of  it ;  and  if  he  sought  any 
inspiration  at  all  from  other  painters,  it  was  from  what 
he  recalled  of  Tintoretto's  work  which  he  had  seen  and 
studied  in  Venice. 

In  the  king's  eldest  boy,  Baltazar  Carlos,  who  was 
born  in  1629,  Velasquez  found  a  model  for  two  or  three 
of  his  most  charmingpictures.  One  is  at  Castle  Howard  ; 
a  second  the  equestrian  portrait,  on  a  galloping  pony,  at 
the  Prado;  and  a  third  the  full  length  hunting  portrait, 
also  at  the  Prado,  in  which  we  see  the  little  prince  stand- 
ing under  a  tree,  gun  in  hand,  with  an  enormous  dog 

114 


Spanish  School 


lying  beside  him.  Another  is  at  Vienna,  representing  Spanish 
him  as  of  about  eleven  years  old,  full  length,  with  his  School 
hand  resting  on  the  back  of  a  chair.  All  of  these  owe 
some  of  their  charm  to  the  youth  and  attractive  person- 
ality of  the  subject;  but  if  we  want  to  see  the  power  of 
Velasquez  without  any  outside  element  to  help  us  to 
appreciate  it,  there  is  the  portrait  of  the  sculptor  Mar- 
tinez Montanes  at  the  Prado.  "The  head  is  wonderful 
in  its  colour  and  its  modelling,"  writes  Senor  Beruete; 
"and  what  a  lesson  in  technique!  The  eyes,  lightly 
touched  with  colour,  are  set  deep  in  their  sockets,  and 
surmounted  by  a  strongly  marked  forehead.  The  high 
lights  are  of  a  rich  impasto,  manipulated  with  extra- 
ordinary skill ;  the  greyer  tones  of  the  flesh,  so  true  and 
so  delicate,  are  painted  in  a  way  that  brings  out  with 
marvellous  truth,  both  the  soft  parts  of  the  cheeks  and 
the  harder  structure  of  the  face,  under  which  one  can 

follow  thebones  of  the  nose  and  forehead Everything 

in  the  picture  is  spontaneous,  and  one  can  see  that  it  is 
a  pledge  of  friendship  given  by  one  artist  to  another; 
there  is  nothing  here  of  that  artificial  arrangement  that 
spoils  commissioned  portraits  even  when  they  are  the 
work  of  a  painter  as  independent  as  Velasquez  was. 
One  feels  here  the  assurance  of  an  artist  who  knows  that 
his  work  will  be  understood  by  his  friend  in  the  spirit 
in  which  it  was  executed."  M.  Lefort,  the  French  critic, 
is  even  more  enthusiastic.  "Ah!  these  redoubtable 
neighbours,"  he  exclaims,  seeing  it  surrounded  by  the 
works  of  other  painters  at  the  Prado.  "This  canvas 
makes  them  look  like  mere  imitations — dead  conven- 
tional likenesses.  Van  Dyck  is  dull,  Rubens  oily, 
Tintoret  yellow;  it  is  Velasquez  alone  who  can  give  us 
the  illusion  of  life  in  all  its  fulness!" 

In  1649  Velasquez  paid  his  second  visit  to  Rome, 

115 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Spanish  where  he  painted  the  famous  portrait  of  His  Holiness, 
School  Pope  Innocent  X.  which  is  now  in  the  Doria  palace. 
This  is  exceptional  in  treatment,  inasmuch  as  it  is  the 
only  portrait  by  Velasquez  in  which  the  subject  is  seated 
— excepting  of  course  equestrian  portraits — and  instead 
of  the  usual  quiet  tones  of  grey  and  brown  which  he  was 
so  fond  of  employing,  thepicture  of  the  Pope  is  a  radiant 
harmony  of  rose  red  and  white.  In  its  realism  it  is  even 
more  surprising  than  most  of  the  other  portraits,  con- 
sidering how  ugly  the  face  had  to  be  made  to  resemble 
nature,  although  the  sitter  was  of  a  still  higher  rank  than 
Velasquez's  royal  master. 

Returningto  Madrid  in  1 651,  Velasquez  never  again 
left  Spain,  and  theremaining  twenty  years  of  his  life  may 
be  considered  the  third  period  of  his  artistic  develop- 
ment, inasmuch  as  no  special  influence  was  exerted 
upon  him  outside  the  ordinary  and  somewhat  tedious 
course  of  his  employment  at  the  Court.  To  this  period 
are  assigned  twenty-six  pictures — Senor  Beruete  only 
admits  the  authenticity  of  eighty-three  in  all,  it  may  be 
mentioned — twelve  of  which  are  royal  portraits,  seven 
those  of  buffoons  and  dwarfs,  three  mythological  and 
two  sacred  subjects,  and  the  two  famous  pieces  of  real 
life,  Las  Meninas  and  Las  Hilanderas. 

Of  the  royal  portraits  those  of  the  Infant "a  Margarita 
are  among  the  most  fascinating,  no  less  from  their 
technical  excellence  than  on  account  of  the  youthful 
charm  of  the  little  Princess.  The  one  at  Vienna  repre- 
sents her  as  about  three  years  old,  dressed  in  red,  stand- 
ing by  a  little  table.  Of  this,  Senor  Beruete  says  that  it 
is  "one  of  the  most  beautiful  inspirations  of  Velasquez, 
and  perhaps  one  that  reveals  better  than  any  other  his 
power  as  a  colourist;  it  is  a  flower,  perfumed  with  every 
infantine  grace."    Another  standing  portrait,  though 

116 


Spanish  School 


only  a  half  length,  when  she  was  not  many  years  older,  Spanish 
is  that  in  the  Salon  Carre*  at  the  Louvre,  which  is  more  School 
familiar  to  us  being  nearer  home  and  more  often  repro- 
duced. M.  de  Wyczewa  praises  it  thus: — "The  perfect 
chefs-dceuvre  collected  in  this  glorious  salon  pale  in  the 
presence  of  this  child  portrait ;  not  one  of  them  can  bear 
comparison  with  this  simple  yet  powerful  painting, 
which  seems  to  aim  only  at  external  resemblance  and 
without  other  effort  to  attain  a  mysterious  beauty  of 
form  and  colour."  At  Frankfort  again  is  a  charming 
picture  of  the  little  Princess,  whole  length,  at  the  age  of 
six  or  seven — a  replica  of  which  is  at  Vienna.  She  is 
dressed  in  greyish  white  with  trimmings  of  black,  and 
her  hoop  skirt  is  so  enormous  that  her  arms  have  to  be 
stretched  out  straight  to  allow  her  hands  to  reach  the 
edge  of  her  coat. 

Of  the  three  mythological  subjects  two  are  in  the 
Prado,  namely  the  Mars  and  the  Mercury  and  Argus, 
while  the  third  and  most  beautiful  is  the  Venus  at  the 
Mirror  recently  purchased  for  our  national  collection. 
These  were  all  of  them  painted  for  the  decoration  of  the 
royal  palaces,  and  we  may  therefore  suppose  that  the 
artist  was  not  entirely  at  liberty  either  in  the  choice  of 
his  subject  or  in  his  method  of  treating  it.  Certainly  he 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  fond  of  painting  the  nude, 
unless  with  men,  and  it  is  noticeable  that  he  has  posed 
his  model  in  this  case  with  more  modesty  and  reserve 
than  is  to  be  observed  in  the  pictures  of  Rubens  and 
Titian.  The  Holy  Church  was  sternly  averse  to  this 
class  of  painting,  in  which,  accordingly,  none  of  the 
Spanish  school  indulged;  but  at  the  same  time  the 
royal  galleries  did  not  exclude  the  most  exuberant  fancies 
of  Rubens,  Titian,  Tintoretto,  and  others,  and  Velasquez 
was  in  all  probability  commissioned  by  Philip  to  paint 

117 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Spanish  this  Venus — and  another  which  has  perished — along 
School  with  the  Mars  and  Mercury  without  regard  to  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities.  But  it  is  hardly  surprising  if 
Velasquez  availed  himself  less  fully  of  the  privilege  than 
a  Flemish  or  Italian  painter  would  no  doubt  have  done, 
and  has  given  us  so  chaste  and  beautiful  a  realisation  of 
the  goddess.  Having  regard  to  the  scepticism  with 
which  this  masterpiece  was  received  in  England  at  the 
time  of  its  purchase  for  the  nation  it  is  worth  quoting 
Senor  Beruete's  remarks  upon  it  in  that  connection. 
"The  authenticity  of  this  work,"  he  writes  "has  found 
numerous  doubters  in  Spain,  less  on  account  of  its  sub- 
ject— being  the  only  nude  female  figure  in  the  whole 
ceuvre  of  Velasquez — than  because  so  few  people  ever 
suspected  its  existence  ;  but  after  it  was  exhibited  at 
Manchester  in  1857  and  in  London  in  1890,  it  was  re- 
cognised that  its  attribution  to  Velasquez  was  well 
founded.  At  the  sight  of  the  canvas  all  doubt  vanishes. 
There,  indeed,  is  the  style,  the  inimitable  technique  of 
Velasquez." 

This,  from  the  connoisseur  whohas  devoted  years  of 
study  to  the  work  of  the  master,  and  who  rejects  such 
well  established  examples  as  the  Dulwich  Philip  IV. 
andthe^ 'dmiral Pulido  Pareja,  is  surely  more  conclu- 
sive than  the  academic  pedantry  of  ignorance  masquer- 
ading as  authority. 

Bartolome  Esteban  Murillo  (161 7-1682)  has  al- 
ways been  accounted  the  most  popular  of  the  Spanish 
painters,  and  it  is  only  in  recent  times  that  his  popular- 
ity has  faded  into  comparative  insignificance  on  the 
fuller  recognition  and  understanding  of  the  genius 
of  Velasquez.  The  intensely  Anglican  feeling  in  this 
country  during  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries 

118 


PLATE  XIX.— VELAZQUEZ 

THE  ROKEBY  VENUS 
National  Gallery,  London 


Spanish  School 


seems  to  have  found  peculiar  relief  in  the  sentimental  as-  Spanish 
pirations  of  the  followers  of  Raphael  in  the  rendering  of  School 
religious  subjects  from  the  Romish  point  of  view.  At 
the  present  time  we  are  readier  to  estimate  Murillo's 
justly  high  place  in  the  annals  of  painting  by  such  a 
picture  as  his  own  portrait,  lent  by  Lord  Spencer  to  the 
recent  Exhibition,  than  to  allow  it  on  the  strength  of 
our  recollection  of  the  Madonnas  and  Holy  Families, 
Immaculate  Conceptions  and  Assumptions,  of  which 
there  exist  so  many  copies  in  the  dining  rooms  of 
country  rectories.  The  Boy  Drinking,  which  is  here 
reproduced,  if  it  is  the  least  "  important "  of  the  four 
examples  in  the  National  Gallery,  is  certainly  not  the 
least  excellent. 

From  the  miserable  state  into  which  Spain  had 
fallen  by  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  it  could 
hardly  be  expected  that  anything  further  in  the  nature 
of  art  would  result,  and  it  was  not  until  towards  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  that  another  genius  arose,  in  the  per- 
son of  Francisco  Goya  (i  746-1828).  Of  this  extraor- 
dinary phenomenon  in  the  firmament  of  art  it  is  im- 
possible to  say  more  than  a  very  few  words  in  this 
place.  Like  a  meteor,  he  is  rather  to  be  pointed  at 
than  talked  about,  when  there  are  so  many  stars  and 
planets  whose  regular  courses  have  to  be  observed  and 
recorded.  He  was  like  a  sharp  knife  drawn  across  the 
face  of  Spain,  gashing  it  here  and  there,  but  for  the  most 
part  just  touching  it  lightly  enough  to  sting  and  to  leave 
a  mark.  As  a  Court  painter  he  was  an  unqualified 
success,  his  salary  under  Charles  IV.  rising  in  ten  years 
from  15,000  to  50,000  reals;  but  his  official  produc- 
tions are  not  the  less  devoid  of  interest  on  that  account, 
and  are  sometimes  the  more  satirical  from  the  neces- 
sity for  concealment.     In  his  more  outspoken  works, 

"9 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

Spanish  such  as  the  Disasters  of  IVar,  and  the  series  of  prints 
School  called  Los  Caprichos  and  Tauromachia,  he  is  too 
brutal  not  to  affect  the  ordinary  observer's  judgment 
upon  his  artistic  qualities.  Velasquez  himself  could 
scarcely  stop  short  enough,  when  painting  dwarfs  and 
idiots  and  cripples,  to  let  us  admire  his  genius  un- 
hampered by  shivers  of  repulsion.  Goya,  being  exactly 
the  opposite  of  Velasquez  in  temperament,  had  no 
scruples  about  expressing  the  utmost  of  his  subject ; 
and  even  in  decorating  a  church  was  reproved  for 
M  falling  short  of  the  standard  of  chastity  "  required. 
But  between  the  extremes  of  brutality  and  convention- 
alism there  is  such  a  wide  expanse  of  pure  joy  of 
painting  that  nothing  can  diminish  the  reputation  of 
Goya,  however  much  it  is  likely  to  be  enhanced.  To 
the  modern  Spanish  painter  he  is  probably  as  fixed  a 
beacon  as  Velasquez. 


120 


PLATE   XX.— MURILLO 
A   BOY  DRINKING 

National  Gallery,  London 


FLEMISH  SCHOOL 

i 

HUBERT  AND  JAN  VAN  EYCK 

In  1383,  on  the  death  of  Louis  de  Maele,  his  son-in-law  Hubert  and 
Philip  the  Hardy,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  assumed  the  Jan  van 
government  of  Flanders.  In  the  same  year  Philip  Eyek 
founded  the  Carthusian  Convent  at  Dijon  and  em- 
ployed a  Flemish  painter  named  Melchin  Broederlam 
to  embellish  two  great  shrines  within  it.  To  the  strong- 
handed  policy  of  Philip  and  his  successors  during  the 
ensuing  century  may  be  attributed  the  rise  of  Nether- 
landish art  which,  though  existing  before  their  time, 
required  their  vigorous  repression  of  intestine  feuds  to 
give  it  an  opportunity  of  developing.  Under  Louis 
and  his  predecessors  Flanders  and  its  cities  had  risen 
to  great  commercial  importance,  but  its  rulers  had 
neither  the  strength  nor  the  prestige  to  keep  the  tur- 
bulent spirit  of  their  subjects  in  due  bounds.  The 
school  of  painting  which  now  arose  so  rapidly  to  per- 
fection under  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy  thus  owed  a 
portion  of  its  progress  to  the  wealth  and  independence 
of  the  commercial  classes.  The  taste,  power,  and  cul- 
tivation of  a  Court  gave  it  an  additional  spur;  and  the 
clergy  throwing  in  their  weight,  added  their  support  in 
aid  of  art. 

Two  wings  of  one  of  the  Dijon  shrines  are  still 

121 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  and  preserved  in  the  museum  there,  and  in  these  Messrs 
Jan  van  Crowe  and  Cavallcaselle  observe  the  characteristics  of 
Eyck  mUch  that  was  to  follow: — "Although  Melchior's  style 
was  founded  on  the  study  of  the  painters  of  the  Rhine, 
his  composition  was  similar  to  the  later  productions  of 
the  Flemish  school.  A  tendency  to  realism  already 
marks  this  early  Fleming,  and  is  the  distinctive  feature 
of  a  manner  in  which  the  painter  strives  to  imitate 
nature  in  its  most  material  forms.  Idealism  and  noble 
forms  are  lacking,  but  Broederlam  is  a  fair  imitator  of 
the  truth.  Distinctive  combination  and  choice  of 
colours  in  draperies,  and  vigorous  tone,  characterise 
him  as  they  do  the  early  works  at  Bruges  and  other 
cities  of  the  Netherlands  which  may  be  judged  by  his 
standard."  And  again,  "the  painter  evidently  struggled 
between  the  desire  to  give  a  material  imitation,  and  the 
inspirations  of  graceful  teachers  like  those  of  Cologne. 
.  .  .  Penetrated  with  similar  ideas  the  early  Flemings 
might  under  similar  circumstances  have  risen  to  a 
sweet  and  dignified  conception  of  nature;  and  if  we  fail 
to  discover  that  they  attained  this  aim  we  must  attribute 
the  failure  to  causes  peculiar  to  Flanders.  Amongst 
these  we  may  class  the  social  status  of  the  Flemish 
painters,  whose  positions  in  the  household  of  princes 
subjected  them  perhaps  to  caprices  unfavourable  to  the 
development  of  high  aspirations,  or  the  contemplation 
and  free  communion  with  self  which  are  the  soul  of  art." 
It  is  interesting  to  compare  these  observations,  so 
far  as  they  refer  to  the  realism  which  characterises 
Netherlandish  painting,  with  those  of  Dr  Waagen, 
who  it  will  be  seen  explains  it  on  the  broader  grounds 
of  national  temperament.  "  Early  Netherlandish  paint- 
ing," he  contends,  "in  its  freedom  from  all  foreign 
influence,  exhibits  the  contrast  between  the  natural 

122 


Flemish  School 

feeling  of  the  Greek  and  the  German  races  respectively  Hubert  and 
in  the  department  of  art — these  two  races  being  the  J**  van 
chief  representatives  of  the  cultivation  of  the  ancient  Eyck 
and  the  modern  world.  In  this  circumstance  consists 
the  high  significance  of  this  school  when  considered  in 
reference  to  the  general  history  of  art.  While  it  is 
characteristic  of  the  Greek  feeling — from  which  was 
derived  the  Italian — to  idealise, — and  to  idealise,  be  it 
observed,  not  only  the  conceptions  of  the  ideal  world 
but  even  such  material  objects  as  portraits,— by  the 
simplification  of  forms  and  the  prominence  given  to  the 
more  important  parts  of  a  work  of  art,  the  early  Nether- 
landers,  on  the  other  hand,  conferred  a  portrait-like 
character  upon  the  most  ideal  personifications  of  the 
Virgin,  the  Apostles,  Prophets,  and  Martyrs,  and  in 
actual  portraiture  aimed  at  rendering  even  the  most 
accidental  peculiarities  of  nature,  likewartsand  wrinkles, 
with  excruciating  fidelity. 

"While  the  Greeks  expressed  the  various  features 
of  outward  nature — such  as  rivers,  fountains,  hills, 
trees,  etc. — under  abstract  human  forms,  the  Nether- 
landers  endeavoured  to  express  them  as  they  had  seen 
them  in  nature,  and  with  a  truth  which  extended  to  the 
smallest  details. 

"  In  opposition  to  the  ideal,  and  what  may  be  called 
the  personifying  tendency  of  the  Greeks,  the  Nether- 
landers  developed  a  purely  realistic  and  landscape 
school. 

"In  this  respect  the  other  Teutonic  nations  are  found 
to  approach  them  most  nearly,  the  Germans  first,  and 
then  the  English." 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  causes  which  pro- 
duced the  distinguishing  features  of  Netherlandish 
painting,  we  have  still  to  enquire  the  origin  from  which 

123 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  and  the  practice  of  painting  in  northern  Europe  proceeded. 
Jan  van  For  in  taking  Melchior  Broederlam  as  a  starting-point 
Eyck  we  are  only  going  as  far  back — with  the  exception  of  cer- 
tain rude  wall  paintings — as  the  earliest  examples  take 
us ;  and  having  seen  how  in  Italy  the  whole  history  of  the 
art  is  traceable  to  Cimabue,  Duccio,  and  Giotto,  through 
the  Byzantines,  at  least  a  century  before  Broederlam 
comes  under  our  notice,  we  might  naturally  conclude 
that  it  was  from  Italy  that  it  spread  to  Cologne,  and 
from  Cologne  to  the  Netherlands.  So  far  as  is  known, 
however,  this  was  not  the  case,  and  we  must  look  else- 
where than  to  Italy  for  the  influences  which  formed  this 
school.  Nevertheless  it  was  a  collateral  branch  of  the 
same  stock — Byzantine  art — and  the  family  resem- 
blance comes  out  none  the  less  strongly  from  the  two 
branches  having  developed  under  different  circum- 
stances. In  Italy,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Byzantine  seed, 
sown  in  such  fertile  soil,  attained  suddenly  a  great 
luxuriance.  In  the  north,  transplanted  by  Charle- 
magne to  Aix-la-Chapelle  in  the  ninth  century,  it  grew 
slowly  and  more  timidly,  but  none  the  less  surely,  under 
the  cover  of  Monasticism,  in  the  manuscripts  illumin- 
ated with  miniatures;  and  thus  when  it  did  burst  forth 
into  fuller  blossom,  the  boldness  of  the  Italian  masters, 
who  worked  at  large  in  fresco,  was  wanting,  and  a 
detailed  and  almost  meticulous  realism  was  its  chief 
characteristic.  Another  point  worth  noticing  is  that 
though  primarily  introduced  for  religious  purposes,  as 
in  Italy,  namely  the  decoration  of  the  cathedral  erected 
by  Charlemagne  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  the  paintings  in  his 
palace  showed  forth  events  in  his  own  life,  such  as  his 
campaigns  in  Spain,  seiges  of  towns  and  feats  of  arms 
by  Frankish  warriors.  At  Upper  Ingelheim,  likewise, 
his  chapel  was  adorned  with  scenes  from  the  Old  and 

124 


Flemish  School 

New  Testaments,  while  the  banqueting  hall  exhibited  Hubert  and 
on  one  wall  the  deeds  of  great  Pagan  rulers,  such  as  Jan  van 
Cyrus,  Hannibal,  and  Alexander,  and  on  the  other  those  'Eyck 
of  Constantine  and  Theodosius,  the  seizure  of  Acqui- 
taine  by  Pepin,  and  Charlemagne's  own  conquest  over 
the  Saxons  and  finally  himself  enthroned  as  conqueror. 
Although  no  trace  remains  of  these  paintings,  contem- 
porary manuscripts  executed  by  his  order  are  still  in 
existence  in  the  libraries  of  Paris,  Treves,  and  elsewhere 
from  which  we  can  form  some  idea  of  the  style  in  which 
they  were  rendered  and  of  the  source  from  which  they 
were  derived. 

Of  these  we  need  only  mention  the  Vulgate  decor- 
ated by  John  of  Bruges,  painter  to  King  Charles  V.  of 
France,  in  1371,  which  contains  a  portrait  of  the  king 
in  profile  with  a  figure  kneeling  before  him,  and  a  few 
small  historical  subjects.  From  these  it  is  evident  that 
the  art  of  painting,  at  any  rate  in  little,  had  made  con- 
siderable progress  in  the  Netherlands  at  that  date,  and 
the  express  designation  of  pic tor  applied  to  John  of 
Bruges,  while  the  ordinary  miniaturist  was  called 
illuminator,  shows  the  probability  of  his  having  painted 
pictures  on  a  larger  scale.  The  high  development  of 
realistic  feeling  as  it  first  appears  to  us  in  the  pictures  of 
Hubert  and  Jan  van  Eyck  is  thus  partly  accounted  for, 
especially  when  we  also  consider  the  wholesale  destruc- 
tion of  larger  works  of  art  that  took  place  in  the  dis- 
turbed condition  of  the  Netherlands  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  main  points,  however,  to  be  borne  in  mind 
is  that  whereas  Cimabue  and  Duccio  started  painting 
on  walls  under  the  influence  of  Byzantine  teachers, 
Hubert  van  Eyck,  a  century  later,  began  painting  on 
wooden  panels  under  that  of  illuminators  and  painters 
in  books. 

125 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  and  To  these,  nevertheless,  there  must  be  added  another 
Jan  van  scarcely  less  important,  namely,  that  the  early  Italians 
Eyck  were  ignorant  of  the  use  of  what  we  now  call  oil  paints, 
and  worked  entirely  in  tempera — that  is  to  say,  there  was 
no  admixture  of  oil  or  varnish  with  their  pigments.  To 
Hubert  van  Eyck  is  attributed  the  invention  of  the 
modern  practice,  as  Vasari  relates  with  more  colour  than 
historic  truth  in  his  life  of  Antonello  da  Messina,  who 
is  supposed  to  have  carried  it  into  Italy.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  the  works  of  the  van  Eycks  and  their  successors 
are  all  in  oils, and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  employment 
of  this  medium  from  the  first  considerably  influenced  the 
style,  colour,  and  execution  of  all  the  works  of  this  school. 
Hubert  van  Eyck  who  according  to  the  common 
acceptation  was  born  in  the  year  1 366  at  Maaseyck,  a  small 
town  not  far  from  Maestricht,  must  have  been  settled 
before  the  year  141 2  in  Bruges,  when  we  hear  of  him 
as  a  member  of  the  Brotherhood  of  the  Virgin  with 
Rays. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Hubert  van  Eyck  was 
acquainted  with  the  work  of  this  John  of  Bruges,  and 
that  it  had  a  considerable  influence  on  him.  But  while 
on  the  one  handhe  carried  the  realistictendenciesof  such 
works  to  an  extraordinary  pitch  of  excellence,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  in  many  essential  respects  he  was  actuated  by 
a  more  ideal  feeling  and  imparted  to  the  realism  of  his 
contemporaries,  by  means  of  his  far  richer  powers  of  re- 
presentation, greater  distinctness,  truth  to  nature,  and 
variety  of  expression.  Throughout  his  works  is  seen  an 
elevated  and  highly  energetic  conception  of  the  stern  im- 
port of  his  labours  in  the  service  of  the  Church. 

The  prevailing  arrangement  of  his  subjects  is  sym- 
metrical, holdingfast  to  the  earliest  rulesof  ecclesiastical 
art.  His  heads  appear  to  aim  at  an  ideal  beauty  and 

126 


Flemish  School 

dignity  only  combined  with  actual  truth  to  nature.  His  Hubert  and 
draperies  exhibit  the  purest  taste  and  softness  of  folds,  Jan  van 
the  realistic  principle  being  apparent  in  that  greater  ^ri 
attention  to  detail  which  a  delicate  indication  of  the 
material  of  the  drapery  necessitates.  Nude  figures  are 
studied  from  nature  with  the  utmost  fidelity;  undraped 
portions  of  figures  are  alsogiven  with  much  truth,  especi- 
ally the  hands.  But  what  is  the  principal  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  his  art  is  the  hitherto  unprecedented 
power,  depth,  transparency  and  harmony  of  his  colour- 
ing. Whatever  want  of  exact  truth  there  may  be  in  the 
story  as  related  by  Vasari's  story  of  the  discovery  of  oil 
painting,  there  is  no  doubt  that  Hubert  Van  Eyck  suc- 
ceeded in  preparing  so  transparent  a  varnish  that  he 
could  apply  it  without  disadvantage  to  all  colours. 

The  chief  work  by  Hubert  Van  Eyck  is  the  large 
altar-piece  painted  for  the  cathedral  of  S.  Bavon  at 
Ghent; — parts  of  this  have  been  removed  and  are  now 
in  the  Berlin  Gallery,  and  supplemented  with  excellent 
copies  of  the  rest,  the  whole  of  the  wonderful  composition 
may  there  be  well  studied;  a  large  photograph  of  the 
whole  altar  piece  may  also  be  seen  in  the  library  at  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  which  shows howthe  work 
was  originally  designed.  It  was  painted  for  Jodocus 
Vyts,  Burgomaster  of  Ghent,  and  his  wife  Elizabeth,  for 
their  mortuary  chapel  in  the  cathedral. 

The  subject  of  the  three  central  panels  of  the  upper 
portion  is  the  Deity  seated  between  the  Virgin  and 
S.  John  the  Baptist.  Underneath  these,  of  the  same 
width,  is  the  famous  Adoration  of  the  Lamb.  These 
together  formed  the  back  of  the  altar-piece,  and  were 
covered  by  wings  which  opened  out  on  hinges  on  either 
side. 

The  three  large  figures  of  the  upper  part  are  de- 

127 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  and  signed  with  all  the  dignity  and  statuesque  repose  be- 
Jan  van  longing  to  an  earlier  style,  and  they  are  painted  on  a 
Eyck  ground  of  gold  and  tapestry,  as  was  constantly  the 
practice  in  earlier  times  :  but  united  with  the  traditional 
type  we  already  find  a  successful  representation  of  life 
and  nature  in  all  their  truth.  They  stand  as  it  were  on 
the  frontier  of  two  different  styles,  and  from  the  excel- 
lence of  both  form  a  wonderful  and  most  impressive 
whole.  The  Heavenly  Father  sits  directly  fronting  the 
spectator,  in  all  the  solemnity  of  ancient  dignity,  His 
right  hand  raised  to  give  the  benediction  to  the  Lamb 
and  to  all  the  multitude  of  figures  below;  in  His  left  hand 
is  a  crystal  sceptre;  on  His  head  the  triple  crown,  the 
emblem  of  the  Trinity.  The  features  are  such  as  are 
ascribed  to  Christ  by  the  traditions  of  the  Church,  but 
noble  and  well  proportioned ;  the  expression  is  forcible, 
though  passionless. 

The  tunic  and  the  mantle  of  this  figure  are  of  a  deep 
red,  the  latter  being  fastened  over  the  breast  by  a  clasp, 
and  falling  down  in  ample  folds  over  the  feet.  Behind, 
as  high  as  the  head,  is  a  hanging  of  green  tapestry  which 
is  ornamented  with  a  golden  pelican — a  symbol  of  the 
Redeemer.  Behind  the  head  the  ground  is  gold,  and  on 
it  in  a  semicircle  are  three  inscriptions  describing  the 
Trinity  as  almighty,  all-good,  and  all-bountiful.  The 
figures  of  S.  John  and  of  the  Virgin  display  equal 
majesty;  both  are  reading  holy  books,  as  they  turn  to- 
wards the  centre  figure.  The  countenance  of  S.  John 
expresses  ascetic  seriousness,  but  in  that  of  the  Virgin 
we  find  a  serene  grace  and  a  purity  of  form  which 
approach  very  nearly  to  the  happier  effects  of  Italian  art. 
The  arrangement  of  the  lower  central  picture,  the 
worship  of  the  Lamb,  is  strictly  symmetrical,  as  the 
mystic  nature  of  the  allegorical  subject  might  seem  to 

128 


PLATE  XXL— JAN  VAN   EYCK 
JAN   ARNOLFINI   AND   HIS   WIFE 

National  Gallery,  London 


Flemish  School 

have  demanded;  but  there  is  such  beauty  in  the  land- Hubert  and 
scape,  in  the  pure  atmosphere,  in  the  bright  green  of  the  Jan  van 
grass,  in  the  masses  of  trees  and  flowers — even  in  the  Eyck 
single  figures  which  stand  out  from  the  four  principal 
groups — that  we  no  longer  perceive  either  hardness  or 
severity  in  this  symmetry. 

The  landscape  of  this  composition  and  that  part  of 
it  containing  the  patriarchs  and  prophets  are  generally 
supposed  to  have  been  completed  by  Jan  Van  Eyck 
(c.  1 385- 1 441),  whose  name  till  within  a  comparatively 
recent  period  had  almost  obscured  that  of  Hubert.  For 
although  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  elder  brother  was 
the  first  to  develop  the  new  method  of  painting,  yet  the 
fame  of  it  did  not  extend  beyond  Belgium  and  across  the 
Alps  until  after  the  death  of  Hubert,  when  the  celebrity 
it  so  speedily  acquired  throughout  Europe  was  trans- 
ferred to  Jan  Van  Eyck.  Within  fifteen  years  after  his 
death,  1455,  Jan  was  commemorated  in  Italy  as  the 
greatest  painter  of  the  century,  while  the  name  of 
Hubert  was  not  even  mentioned.  It  was  Jan  van  Eyck 
to  whom  Antonello  da  Messina  is  said  by  Vasari  to 
have  resorted  in  Bruges  in  order  to  learn  the  new  style 
of  painting;  he  alone  also  is  mentioned  in  Vasari's  first 
edition  of  1550,  Hubert  not  until  the  second  edition  in 
1568,  and  then  only  incidentally. 

Fortunately  there  are  in  existence  various  authentic 
pictures  by  Jan  Van  Eyck  in  which  his  original  powers 
are  more  easily  recognised  than  in  the  part  he  took  in 
the  execution  of  the  great  altar-piece  at  Ghent,  in  which 
he  doubtless  accommodated  himself  with  proper  frater- 
nal piety  both  to  the  composition  and  to  the  style  of  his 
elder  brother — who  was  also  his  master.  In  these  we 
can  see  that  he  possessed  neither  the  enthusiasm  for 
the  rich  imagery  and  symbolism  of  the  ecclesiastical  art 

1  129 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  and  of  the  Middle  Ages,  nor  that  feeling  for  beauty  in  human 
Jan  van  forms  or  in  drapery  which  belonged  to  his  elder  brother. 
Ejck  His  feeling,  on  the  other  hand,  led  him  to  the  closest 
and  truest  conception  of  individual  nature.  Where  he 
had  to  paint  portraits  only — a  task  which  was  most  con- 
genial to  the  tendency  of  his  mind — he  attained  a  life- 
like truth  of  form  and  colouring  in  every  part,  extending 
even  to  the  minutest  details,  such  as  no  other  artist  of 
his  time  could  rival, and  which  art  in  general  has  seldom 
produced.  In  his  actual  brush  work  he  shows  greater 
facility  than  was  ever  attained  by  Hubert,  by  which  he 
was  enabled  to  render  the  material  of  every  substance 
with  marvellous  fidelity. 

What  little  we  know  of  the  personal  history  of  Jan 
Van  Eyck  is  of  exceptional  interest,  inasmuch  as  we  find 
him  employed  on  diplomatic  errands  to  foreign  coun- 
tries, like  his  great  successor  Rubens;  and  as  it  happens 
he  landed  in  England,  though  not  intentionally,  in  the 
course  of  one  of  these  voyages,  being  driven  into  Shore- 
ham  and  Falmouth  by  adverse  weather.  It  was  in  1425 
that  he  was  taken  into  the  service  of  Philip  III.,  Duke 
of  Burgundy,  as  painter  and  "varlet  de  chambre," 
shortly  after  which  he  went  to  Lille.  In  the  following 
year  he  was  sent  on  a  pilgrimage  as  the  Duke's  proxy, 
and  again  on  two  secret  missions.  In  1428  he  went  with 
the  Duke's  Embassy  to  the  King  of  Portugal  which  was 
to  sue  for  the  hand  of  Isabella,  the  Portuguese  princess. 
It  was  on  this  occasion  that  he  was  driven  on  to  our 
shores.  Arriving  at  Lisbon  he  painted  two  portraits  of 
Isabella,  one  of  which  was  sent  home  by  sea  and  the 
other  overland.  After  a  happy  and  successful  career  he 
died  in  1441  at  Bruges,  where  he  had  married  and 
settled  down  on  his  return  from  Portugal. 

The  most  beautiful  example  of  Jan  Van  Eyck'swork 

130 


Flemish  School 

in  England  is  the  portrait  of  Jean  Arnolfini  and  Jeanne  Hubert  and 
de  Chenany  his  wife,  now  in  the  National  Gallery  (No.  Jan  van 
1 86).  This  is  dated  with  the  charming  inscription,  *M 
4t  Johannes  de  Eyck  fuit  hie  1434" — that  is  to  say,  in- 
stead of  simply  signing  the  picture,  he  writes,  "Jan  Van 
Eyck  was  here,  1434."  No  other  picture  shows  so  high 
a  development  of  the  master's  extraordinary  power  and 
charm.  Besides  every  other  quality  peculiar  to  him,  we 
observe  here  a  perfection  of  tone  and  of  chiaroscuro 
which  no  other  specimen  of  this  whole  period  affords. 
It  is  recorded  that  Princess  Mary,  sister  of  Charles  V. 
and  Governess  of  the  Netherlands,  purchased  this  picture 
from  a  barber  to  whom  it  belonged  at  the  price  of  a 
post  worth  a  hundred  gulden  a  year.  Among  its  sub- 
sequent possessors  were  Don  Diego  de  Guevara,  major- 
domo  of  Joan,  Queen  of  Castile,  by  whom  it  was  pre- 
sented to  Margaret  of  Austria.  In  1530  it  was  acquired 
by  Mary  of  Hungary,  and  later  it  returned  to  Spain.  In 
1789  it  was  in  the  palace  at  Madrid,  and  soon  after  it 
was  taken  by  one  of  the  French  Generals,  in  whose 
quarters  Major-General  Hay  found  it  after  the  battle 
of  Waterloo. 

Two  other  portraits  in  the  National  Gallery  bear  the 
signature  of  Jan  Van  Eyck.  No.  222,  An  elderly  man, 
head  and  shoulders,  on  the  frame  of  which  is  the  painter's 
motto,  "als  ich  can,"  and  his  signature,  "Johannes  de 
Eyck  me  fecit  anno  1433,  21  Octobris."  The  other,  No. 
290,  is  a  younger  man,  half  length,  standing  inside  an 
open  window,  on  the  sill  of  which  is  inscribed  "Ti/xdtfeos," 
and  "Leal  Souvenir,"  and  below  the  date  and  signature, 
"Actum  anno  domini  1432,  10  die  Octobris  a  Iohanne 
de  Eyck." 

Among  the  Netherlandish  scholars  and  followers  of 
the  Van  Eycks  of  whom  any  record  has  been  preserved 

131 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  and some  appear  to  have  been  gifted  with  considerable 
Jan  van  powers,  though  none  attained  the  excellence  of  their 
Eyck  great  precursors.  Although  a  number  of  works  repre- 
senting this  school  still  exist  in  the  various  countries 
of  Europe,  yet  compared  with  the  actual  abundance  of 
them  at  one  time  they,  constitute  but  a  scanty  remnant. 

Though  not  actually  a  pupil  of  Jan  Van  Eyck, 
Roger  Van  der  Weyden  acquired  after  him  the 
greatest  celebrity.  As  early  as  1436  he  filled  the  honour- 
able post  of  official  painter  to  the  city  of  Brussels.  The 
chief  work  executed  by  him  in  this  capacity  was  an 
altar-piece  for  the  Chamber  of  Justice  in  Hotel  de  Ville. 
According  to  the  custom  of  the  time,  it  set  forth  in  the 
most  realistic  fashion  examples  of  stern  observance  ot 
the  law  for  the  admonition  of  those  placed  in  authority. 
The  principal  picture  showed  how  Herkenbald,  a  judge 
in  the  eleventh  century,  executed  his  own  nephew  (con- 
victed of  a  grave  crime,  but  who  would  otherwise  have 
escaped  the  penalty  of  the  law)  with  his  own  hands ;  and 
how  the  sacramental  wafer  which,  on  the  plea  of  murder, 
was  denied  to  him  by  the  priest,  reached  the  lips  of  the 
upright  judge  by  means  of  a  miracle.  The  wings  con- 
tained an  example  of  the  justice  of  the  Emperor  Trajan. 
These  pictures  are  unfortunately  no  longer  in  existence, 
having  probably  been  burned  when  Brussels  was  be- 
sieged in  1695. 

In  the  Museum  of  the  Hospital  at  Beaune  is  one  of 
the  most  important  of  his  works  still  in  existence,  The 
Last  Judgment ,  though  in  this  it  is  generally  supposed 
he  was  assisted  by  Dirk  Bouts  and  Hans  Memling.  It 
contains  several  portraits,  notably  those  of  the  Pope, 
Eugenius  IV.,  who  stands  behind  the  Apostles  in  the 
right  wing,  and  next  to  him  Philip  the  Good.  The 
crowned  female  in  the  opposite  wing  is  probably  Philip's 

132 


PLATE  XXII.— JAN  VAN   EYCK 
PORTRAIT  OF  THE  PAINTER'S  WIFE 

Town  Gallery,  Bruges 


Flemish  School 

second  wife,  Isabella  of  Portugal,  whose  portrait  Jan  Hubert  and 
Van  Eyck  went  to  Lisbon  to  paint  before  her  marriage.  Jan  van 
On  the  outer  sides  are  excellently  painted  portraits  oi^yc^ 
the  founder  of  the  Hospital,  Nicolas  Rolin,  and  his 
wife.  This  work  has  been  classed  with  the  Van  Eycks* 
Adoration  of  the  Lamb,  and  the  Adoration  of  the 
Shepherds  by  Hugo  Van  der  Goes,  as  crystallizing  the 
finest  expression  of  early  northern  painting. 

In  1450  he  visited  Italy,  where  he  painted  the  beau- 
tiful little  altar-piece  which  is  now  in  the  Stadel  Institute 
at  Frankfort,  for  Piero  and  Giovanni  de'  Medici. 

Another  very  fine  example  of  his  work  is  the  trip- 
tych, now  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  executed  for  Pierre 
Bladelin.  In  the  centre  is  the  Nativity,  with  a  portrait 
of  Bladelin  kneeling,  and  angels.  On  the  one  side  is 
the  annunciation  of  the  Redeemer  to  the  ruler  of  the 
West — the  Emperor  Augustus — by  the  agency  of  the 
Tiburtine  Sibyl;  on  the  other  to  those  of  the  East — the 
Three  Kings — who  are  keeping  watch  on  a  mountain, 
where  the  child  appears  to  them  in  a  star. 

One  of  the  largest  as  well  as  of  the  finest  of  the 
master's  works  is  a  triptych  in  the  Munich  Gallery — 
the  Adoration  of  the  Kings,  with  the  Annunciation  and 
the  Presentation  in  the  Temple  in  the  wings.  The  figure 
of  the  Virgin  in  the  Presentation  is  particularly  pleasing 
for  its  simple  and  unaffected  realism.  S.  Luke  paint- 
ing the  Virgin,  also  in  the  Munich  Gallery,  is  ascribed 
to  Roger. 

No  painter  of  this  school,  the  Van  Eycks  even  not 
excepted,  exercised  so  great  and  widely  extended  an 
influence  as  Roger  Van  der  Weyden.  Not  only  were 
HansMemling — the  greatest  master  of  the  next  genera- 
tion in  Belgium — and  his  own  son,  also  named  Roger, 
his  pupils,  but  innumerable  works  other  than  pictures 

133 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  and  were  produced,  such  as  miniatures,  block-books,  and 
Jan  van  engravings,  in  which  his  form  of  art  is  recognisable.  It 
Eyc&  was  under  his  auspices  that  the  realistic  tendency  of 
the  Van  Eycks  pervaded  all  Germany;  for  it  was  only 
after  the  death  of  Jan  Van  Eyck,  in  1441,  that  the 
widespread  fame  of  Roger  Van  der  Weyden  induced 
Germans  to  visit  his  studio  at  Brussels.  Martin  Schon- 
gauer,  one  of  the  greatest  German  masters  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  is  known  to  have  been  his  pupil,  and  it 
is  certain  that  there  must  have  been  many  others. 

It  is  in  Hans  Memling  (c.  1435-1494),  whomVasari 
states  to  have  been  the  pupil  of  Roger,  that  the  early 
Netherlandish  School  attains  the  highest  delicacy  of 
artisticdevelopment.  His  poetical  and  profoundly  human 
qualities  had  a  special  attraction  forthe"  Pre-Raphaelite 
Brotherhood"  inaugurated  by  Rossetti  and  Holman 
Hunt  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  This  un- 
usual tenderness  of  feeling  is  probably  also  the  origin  of 
the  legend  that  Memling  was  taken  into  the  Hospital 
of  S.  John  at  Bruges — where  he  painted  most  of  his 
masterpieces — as  a  sick  soldier  after  the  battle  of  Nancy. 
In  feeling  for  beauty  and  grace  he  was  more  gifted  than 
any  painter  except  Hubert  Van  Eyck,  and  this  quality, 
conspicuous  amid  the  somewhat  ugly  realism  of  most  of 
his  contemporaries,  has  ensured  him  perhapsa  littlemore 
popularity  than  is  rightly  his  share.  Compared  with  the 
works  of  his  master,  Roger  Van  der  Weyden,  his  figures 
are  certainly  of  better  proportions  and  less  meagreness 
of  form;  his  hands  and  feet  truer  to  nature;  the  heads  of 
his  women  are  sweeter,  and  those  of  his  men  less  severe. 
His  outlines  are  softer,  and  in  the  modelling  of  his  flesh 
parts  more  delicacy  of  half  tones  is  observable.  His 
colours  are  still  more  luminous  and  transparent.  On  the 
other  hand  he  is  inferior  to  Van  der  Weyden  in  the  carry- 

134 


Flemish  School 

ing  out  of  detail,  such  as  the  materials  of  his  draperies  Hubert  and 
or  the  rendering  of  the  full  brilliancy  of  gold.  Jan  van 

In  1467  Memling  was  a  master  painter  at  Bruges,  Ef# 
and  painted  the  portrait  of  the  medallist,  Nicolas  Spinelli, 
which  is  now  in  the  Royal  Museum  at  Antwerp,  and  a 
small  altar-piece  now  at  Chatsworth.  His  most  famous 
works,  thosein  the  Hospital  at  Bruges,  belong  to  a  some- 
what later  date,  the  Shrine  ofS.  Ursula  not  being  com- 
pleted till  1489.  The  Adoration  of  the  Kings  and  the 
altar-piece  were  some  ten  years  earlier.  The  famous 
shrine  of  S.  Ursula  is  about  four  feet  in  length,  and  the 
whole  of  the  outside  is  adorned  with  painting.  On  each 
side  of  the  cover  are  three  medallions,  a  large  one  in  the 
centre  and  two  smaller  at  the  sides.  The  latter  contain 
angels  playing  on  musical  instruments;  in  the  centre  on 
one  side  is  a  Coronation  of  the  Virgin,  on  the  other  the 
Glorification  of  S.  Ursula  and  her  companions,  with  two 
figures  of  Bishops.  On  the  gable-ends  are  the  Virgin 
and  Child  with  two  sisters  of  the  hospital  kneeling  be- 
fore them,  and  S.  Ursula  with  the  arrow,  the  instrument 
of  her  martyrdom,  and  virgins  seeking  protection  under 
her  mantle.  On  the  longer  sides  of  the  reliquary  itself, 
in  six  rather  larger  compartments,  is  painted  the  history 
of  S.  Ursula. 

Of  about  the  same  period,  possibly  a  little  earlier,  is 
the  Marriage  of  S.  Catherine,  which  is  also  in  S.  John's 
Hospital  at  Bruges.  The  central  figure  is  that  of  the 
Virgin,  seated  under  a  porch,  with  tapestry  hanging 
down  behind  it;  two  angels  hold  a  crown  over  her  head: 
beside  her  is  S.  Catherine  kneeling,  whose  head  is  one 
of  the  finest  ever  painted  by  Memling.  Behind  her  is 
an  angel  playing  on  the  organ,  and  further  back  S.  John 
the  Baptist.  On  the  other  side  kneels  S.  Barbara, 
reading:  behind  her  another  angel  holds  a  book  to  the 

135 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  and  Virgin,  and  still  further  back  is  S.  John  the  Evangelist, 
Jan  van  a  figure  of  great  beauty,  and  of  a  singularly  mild  and 
Eyck  thoughtful  character.  Through  the  arcades  of  the  porch 
we  look  out,  on  either  side  of  the  throne,  on  a  rich  land- 
scape, in  which  are  represented  scenes  from  the  lives  of 
the  two  S.  Johns.  The  panel  on  the  right  contains  the 
beheading  of  the  Baptist,  on  the  left  the  Evangelist  in 
the  Isle  of  Patmos,  where  the  vision  of  the  Apocalypse 
appears  to  him — the  Almighty  on  a  throne  in  a  glory  of 
dazzling  light,  encompassed  with  a  rainbow. 

The  whole  forms  a  work  strikingly  poetical  and  most 
impressive  in  character;  it  is  highly  finished,  both  in 
drawing  and  composition. 

Ian  Gossaert(<:.  i  47  2- 1 535),  called  Jan  van  M  abuse 
from  his  native  town  of  Maubeuge,  was  the  son  of  a 
bookbinder  who  worked  for  the  Abbey  of  Sainte- 
Aldegonde.  It  is  possible  therefore  that  he  might  have 
formed  an  early  acquaintance  with  illuminated  manu- 
scripts before  studying  the  art  of  painting  in  the  studio 
of  a  master.  Memling,  Gerard,  David,  and  Quentin 
Massys  have  been  suggested  as  his  instructors,  but  it  is 
not  known  for  certain  that  he  was  actually  a  pupil  of  any 
of  them.  In  1508  he  went  to  Italy,  where  he  appears  to 
have  been  greatly  influenced  both  by  the  work  of  the 
Renaissance  painters  and  by  the  antique.  The  Adora- 
tion of  the  Kings,  which  was  lately  purchased  from 
Castle  Howard  for  the  National  Gallery  for  ^40,000, 
was  painted  before  he  went  to  Italy. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  transfer  of  commerce  from  Bruges  to 
Antwerp,  this  latter  city  first  became  and  longcontinued 
the  centre  of  art,  and  especially  of  Netherlandish  paint- 
ing. Here  it  is  that  we  find  Quentin  Massys,  the 
greatest  Belgian  painter  of  this  later  time.  He  was  born 

136 


PLATE  XXIII.-— JAN   MABUSE 

PORTRAIT  OF  JEAN   CARONDELET 

Louvre,  Paris 


Flemish  School 

probably  in  1466.  His  father  is  said  to  have  been  a  black-  Hubert  and 
smith  and  clockmaker,  and  there  is  a  tradition  that  Jan  van 
Quentin  only  forsook  the  hammer  for  the  brush  at  the  «tf« 
instigation  of  a  tender  passion  for  a  beautiful  lady.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  he  is  an  important  figure  in  the  history 
of  Belgian  art.  He  distinguishes,  broadly  speaking,  the 
close  of  the  last  period  and  the  beginning  of  the  next. 
A  number  of  pictures  representing  sacred  subjects  ex- 
hibit, with  little  feeling  for  real  beauty  of  form,  such 
delicacy  of  features,  beauty  and  earnestness  of  feeling, 
tenderness  and  clearness  of  colouring  and  skill  in  finish, 
as  worthily  recall  the  religious  painting  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  though  at  the  very  end  of  them.  In  his  draperies, 
especially,  we  observe  a  charm  which  is  peculiar  to 
Massys.  At  the  same  time,  in  the  subordinate  figures  in- 
troduced into  sacred  subjects,  such  as  the  executioners, 
etc.,  he  seems  to  take  pleasure  in  coarse  and  tasteless 
caricatures. 

In  subjects  taken  from  common  life,  such  as  money 
changers,  loving  couples,  or  ugly  old  women,  he  uses 
his  brush  with  evident  zest,  and  with  great  success.  The 
pictures  of  his  later  period  are  also  distinguished  from 
those  of  other  painters  by  the  large  size  of  the  figures, 
which  for  the  first  time  in  his  country  are  of  three- 
quarters  or  even  actual  life  size. 

Among  his  most  original  and  attractive  pictures  are 
the  half-length  figures  of  Christ  and  the  Virgin.  These 
must  have  been  very  popular  in  his  own  time,  for  he  has 
left  several  repetitions  of  them.  Two  heads  of  this  class 
are  at  Antwerp,  and  two  others  of  equal  beauty  are  in 
the  National  Gallery  in  one  frame  (No.  295). 

The  most  celebrated  of  his  subject  pictures  is  that 
known  by  the  name  of  The  Misers,  or  The  Money 
Changers,  at  Windsor  Castle  — of  which  there   are 

137 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  and  numerous  copies,  and  this  is  not  supposed  to  be  the 
Jan  van  original.    The  Money  Changer  and  His  IVife  at  the 
Eyck  Louvre  is  undoubtedly  his. 

Lucas  van  Leyden,  as  he  was  called  (his  real  name 
being  Luc  Jacobez),  was  born  in  1494,  and  died  in 
1533.  He  was  a  pupil  of  a  little  known  artist,  Cornelis 
Engelbrechstein,  who  was  a  follower  if  not  a  pupil  of 
Memling.  Lucas  was  an  artist  of  multifarious  powers 
and  very  early  development.  He  painted  admirably — 
though  his  authenticated  works  are  very  scarce — drew, 
and  engraved.  He  pursued  the  path  of  realism  in  the 
treatment  of  sacred  subjects,  but  with  less  beauty  or 
elevation  of  mind.  His  heads  are  generally  of  a  very 
ugly  character.  At  the  same  time  his  form  of  expression 
found  sympathy  in  the  feeling  of  the  period,  and  by  the 
skill  with  which  it  was  expressed,  especially  in  his 
engravings,  attracted  a  number  of  followers.  In  scenes 
from  common  life  he  is  full  of  truth  and  delicate  observa- 
tion of  nature,  though  showing  now  and  then  a  some- 
what coarse  sense  of  humour.  One  of  his  most  im- 
portant works  is  a  large  composition  of  The  Last  Judg- 
ment, which  is  at  Leyden. 

Very  early  in  the  sixteenth  century — beginning  in 
fact,  as  we  have  seen,  with  Jan  Mabuse  in  1508 — the 
Netherlandish  and  German  artists  made  it  the  fashion 
to  repair  to  Italy,  attracted  by  the  reputation  of  the 
great  masters ;  so  that  from  this  time  onwards  their 
work  ceases  to  exhibit  the  purely  northern  character- 
istics of  their  predecessors.  For  it  appears  that  precisely 
those  qualities  most  opposed  to  their  own  native  feel- 
ing for  art  made  the  deepest  impression  on  their  minds; 
more  especially  such  general  qualities  as  grandeur, 
beauty,  simplicity  of  forms,  drawing  of  the  nude,  un- 
restrained freedom,  boldness,  and  grace  of  movement 

138 


Flemish  School 

— in  short,  all  that  is  comprised  in  art  under  the  term  Hubert  and 
"  ideal."  Jan  van 

But  the  attempt  to  appropriate  all  these  qualities  Eft& 
could  lead  to  no  successful  result.  Being  based  on  no 
inherent  want  on  the  part  of  their  own  original  feeling 
for  art,  it  became  only  the  outward  imitation  of  some- 
thing foreign  to  themselves,  and  they  never  therefore 
succeeded  in  mastering  the  complete  understanding  of 
form,  or  in  adopting  the  true  feeling  for  beauty  of  line 
or  grace  of  movement ;  and  in  aiming  at  them  they  only 
degenerated  into  artificiality,  exaggeration  in  drawing, 
and  violence  in  attitude.  The  pictures  of  this  class,  even 
of  religious  subjects,  have  accordingly  but  little  to 
attract  the  eye,  and  when  they  selected  scenes  from 
ancient  mythology,  and  allegories  decked  out  with  an 
ostentation  of  learning,  the  result  is  positively  dis- 
agreeable. 

The  most  satisfactory  productions  of  this  period 
will  be  found  in  the  department  of  portrait  painting, 
which,  by  its  nature,  threw  the  artist  upon  the  exercise 
of  his  own  original  feeling  for  art.  As  in  every  other 
respect  this  epoch  is  far  more  important  as  a  link  in  the 
chain  of  history  than  from  any  pleasure  arising  from  its 
own  works,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  mention  only  the 
more  important  painters  and  a  few  of  their  principal 
pictures. 

The  first  painter  who  deserted  his  native  style  of  art 
was,  as  before  mentioned,  Jan  Mabuse.  After  the  large 
Adoration  of  the  Kings  in  the  National  Gallery  the 
most  important  picture  of  his  pre-Italian  period  is  the 
Christ  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane  at  Berlin.  Nearly 
all  his  works  subsequent  to  1512,  by  which  time  he  had 
settled  in  Brussels,  are  characterised  by  all  the  faults 
above  mentioned.    Their  redeeming  quality  is  their 

139 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  and  masterly  treatment.  Among  those  of  religious  subjects 
Jan  van  the  smallest  are  as  a  rule  the  best.  The  Ecce  Homo 
Eyck  at  Antwerp,  so  frequently  copied  by  contemporary 
painters,  is  a  specimen  of  masterly  modelling  and 
vigorous  colour.  He  is  less  successful  with  his  life- 
size  Adam  and  Eve,  of  which  there  are  repetitions 
at  Brussels,  Hatfield,  Hampton  Court  and  Berlin. 
But  his  most  unpleasing  efforts  are  the  mythological 
subjects  suchas  the  Danae  at  Munich,  and  the  Neptune 
and  Amphitrite  at  Berlin.  On  theother  hand,  his  por- 
traits are  attractive  both  from  being  more  original,  and 
less  influenced  by  his  acquired  mannerisms  of  style 
Four  of  these  are  in  the  National  Gallery,  and  the  Girl 
weighing  Gold  Pieces,  in  the  Berlin  gallery,  is  also 
worthy  of  mention. 

Bernard  van  Orley,  born  at  Brussels  in  1 471,  is 
characterised  in  the  catalogue  of  the  National  Gallery 
as  "taking  his  place  after  Massy s  and  Mabuse  on  the 
downward  slope  of  Netherlandish  painting."  He  has 
been  immortalised  by  the  fine  portrait  head  of  him  by 
Albert  Durer  which  is  now  in  the  Dresden  Gallery.  He 
was  Court  painter  to  Margaret  of  Austria,  Governess 
of  the  Low  Countries,  and  retained  the  same  post  under 
her  successor,  Mary  of  Hungary.  He  is  said  to  have 
visited  Rome  in  1509,  and  there  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Raphael,  whose  influence  is  certainly  apparent, 
though  hardly  his  inspiration,  in  the  Holy  Eamily  in 
the  Louvre.  A  more  Netherlandish  work,  both  in  feel- 
ing and  in  treatment,  is  the  Field  in  the  Gallery  at 
Brussels. 

Ian  Scorel,  born  in  1495,  was  a  pupil  of  Mabuse, 
and  appears  to  have  been  the  first  to  introduce  the 
Italian  style  into  his  native  country — Holland.  When 
on  a  pilgrimage  to  Palestine  he   happened  to  pass 

140 


Flemish  School 

through  Rome  at  the  time  his  countryman  was  raised  Hubert  and 
to  the  papal  dignity  as  Adrian  VI.,  and  after  painting  Jan  van 
his   portrait  he  was   appointed   overseer  of  the  art  Eyck 
treasures  of  the  Vatican.  Returning  to  Utrecht,  where 
he  died,  he  painted  the  picture  of  the  Virgin  and  Child, 
with  donors,  which  is  now  in  the  Town  Hall. 

A  fine  portrait  by  Scorel  of  Cornelius  Aerntz  van 
der  Dussen  is  in  the  Berlin  Gallery. 

The  decided  and  strongly  realistic  style  in  which 
Quentin  Massys  had  painted  scenes  from  common  life, 
as  for  instance  the  Misere  or  Money  Changers,  became 
the  model  for  various  painters  in  their  treatment  of 
similar  subjects.  First  among  these  was  his  son,  Jan 
Massys,  born  about  1500,  who  followed  closely  but 
rather  clumsily  in  his  father's  footsteps,  and  need  only  be 
mentioned  for  carrying  on  the  tradition.  More  interest- 
ing were  the  Breughels,  namely,  Pieter  Breughel  the 
elder,  born  about  1520,  called  Peasant  Breughel, and  his 
two  sons  Pieter  and  Jan.  Old  Breughel  is  best  studied 
at  Vienna,  where  there  are  good  examples  of  his  various 
subjects,  notably  a  Crucifixion  and  The  Tower  of  Babel 
— both  dated  1563 — and  secular  scenes  like  -^  Peasant 
Wedding  and  a  Fight  between  Carnival  and  Lent, 
which  are  full  of  clever  and  droll  invention. 

His  elder  son,  Pieter,  was  called  Hell  Breughel, 
from  his  choice  of  subject.  He  is  far  inferior  to  his  father 
or  to  his  younger  brother  Jan,  called  Velvet  Breughel, 
born  in  1568.  Though  more  especially  a  landscape 
painter,  Jan  also  takes  an  important  place  in  the  de- 
velopment of  subject  pictures,  which,  though  seldom 
rising  above  a  somewhat  coarse  reality,  are  of  a  lively 
character,  and  worthy  forerunners  of  the  more  accom- 
plished productions  of  Teniers,  Ostade,  and  Brouwer. 

It  is  in  portrait  painting,  however,  that  the  Nether- 

141 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Hubert  tf/^landish  School  chiefly  distinguished  itself  during  its 
Jan  van  decline  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  had  all  its  sons 
tyck  remained  in  the  country  to  enhance  its  glory,  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  effect  on  the  general  practice  of  painting 
would  have  been  more  than  beneficial.  But  portrait 
painters  have  not  always  been  content  to  sit  at  home  and 
wait  for  sitters  to  come  to  them,  especially  when  the 
state  of  society  in  which  they  happen  to  find  themselves 
makes  waiting  rather  a  long  and  tedious  process.  From 
the  Reformation  onwards,  for  over  two  centuries,  there 
was  a  steady  demand  for  portrait  painters  in  England, 
and  after  the  foundation  of  a  really  English  school  of 
painting  by  Reynolds  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  stream  of  foreign,  especially  Netherlandish, 
talent  never  entirely  ceased  to  flow.  But  confining  our- 
selves for  the  present  to  the  sixteenth  century,  we  find 
that  all  the  considerable  Netherlandish  portrait  painters 
were  employed  for  the  most  part  outside  their  own 
country. 

Typical  of  these  is  Joos  van  Cleef,  of  Antwerp, 
who  died  in  1540.  According  to  Vasari  he  visited 
Spain  and  painted  portraits  for  the  Court  of  France.  At 
all  events  it  is  certain  that  he  worked  for  a  time  in 
England,  where  the  great  success  of  Sir  Antonio  Mor  is 
said  to  have  disordered  his  brain.  The  few  pictures  that 
can  be  assigned  to  him  with  any  certainty  thoroughly 
justify  the  high  reputation  he  enjoyed  in  his  time — the 
two  male  portraits  for  example  at  Berlin  and  Munich, 
the  portraits  of  himself  and  his  wife  at  Windsor,  and 
his  own  at  Althorp.  His  style  may  be  classed  as  be- 
tween that  of  Holbein  and  Antonio  Mor.  His  well- 
drawn  forms  are  decided  without  being  hard,  and  his 
warm  and  transparent  colouring  recalls  the  great 
masters  of  the  Venetian  School. 

142 


Flemish  School 
ii 

PETER  PAUL  RUBENS 

Dr  Waagen  thus  summarises  the  history  of  painting  Peter  Paul 
in  the   Netherlands  during  the  interval  of  about  a  Rubens 
century  and  a  half  that  elapsed  between  the  death  of  Jan 
van  Eyck  in  1440  and  the  birth  of  Peter  Paul  Rubens 
in  1577. 

"The  great  school  of  the  brothers  van  Eyck,"  he 
writes,  "which  united  with  a  profound  and  genuine 
enthusiasm  for  religious  subjects  a  pure  and  healthy 
feeling  for  nature,  and  a  talent  for  portraying  her 
minutest  details  with  truth  and  fidelity,  had  continued 
till  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  in  some  in- 
stances even  later,  to  produce  the  most  admirable  works, 
combining  the  utmost  technical  perfection  in  touch  and 
finish  with  most  vivid  and  beautiful  colouring.  To  this 
original  school,  however,  had  succeeded  a  perverted  rage 
for  imitating  the  Italian  masters,  which  had  been  intro- 
duced into  the  Netherlands  by  a  few  painters  of  talent, 
particularly  by  Jean  Mabuse  and  Bernard  van  Orley. 
To  display  their  science  by  throwing  their  figures  into 
forced  and  difficult  positions  and  strongly  marking  the 
muscles,  by  which  they  thought  to  emulate  the  grandeur 
of  Michel  Angelo,  and  to  exhibit  their  learning  by  the 
choice  of  mythological  and  allegorical  subjects,  became 
the  aim  of  succeeding  painters,  and  before  these  false 
and  artificial  views  of  art,  the  spirit  of  religious  enthusi- 
asm and  the  pure,  naive  perception  of  the  truth  and 
beauty  of  nature  gradually  disappeared. 

"In  proportion  as  the  Flemish  painters  lost  the 
proper  conception  of  form,  and  the  feeling  for  delicacy 

143 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Peter  Paul and  beauty  of  outline,  it  followed  of  course  that  they 
Rubens  became  more  and  more  removed  from  nature  in  their 
desire  to  rival  each  other  in  the  forced  attitudes  of  their 
figures,  and  in  the  exhibition  of  nudity,  until  at  last  such 
disgusting  caricatures  were  produced  as  we  find  in  the 
works  of  Martin  Heemskirk  or  Franz  Floris,  artists 
who  were  even  deficient  in  good  colouring,  the  old 
inheritance  of  the  school. 

"Some  few  painters, however,  whose  feelingfor  truth 
and  nature  repelled  them  instinctively  from  a  path  so 
far  removed  from  both,  took  to  portraying  scenes  of  real 
life  with  considerable  humour  and  vivacity;  or  they 
delineated  nature  in  her  commonest  aspects  with  great 
minuteness  of  detail ;  and  thus  tableaux  de  genre  and 
landscape  originated.  Although  a  few  isolated  efforts 
to  introduce  a  better  state  of  things  were  visible  towards 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  it  was  reserved  for  a 
mind  of  no  common  power  to  bring  about  a  complete 
revolution." 

That  Rubens  was  possessed  of  a  "  mind  of  no 
common  power"  will  be  readily  admitted.  He  was  an 
extraordinary  person,  in  whom  were  combined  such  a 
variety  of  excellentqualities  that  there  seemstohave  been 
no  room  left  in  him  for  any  of  the  inferior  ones  which 
are  usually  necessary,  as  one  must  almost  admit,  for 
an  alloy  that  will  harden  the  finer  metal  for  the  practical 
purposes  of  success.  With  all  his  feeling  for  religion, 
he  was  seldom  prudish;  his  amazing  vitality  never  led 
him  into  excess  or  intemperance.  His  intense  patriotism 
was  all  for  peace;  classical  learning  never  made  him 
dry  or  bumptious,  nor  the  favour  of  kings  servile.  As 
fine  a  gentleman  as  Buckingham,  he  had  no  enemies. 

Something  more  than  temperament  and  natural 
ability,    however,   was    necessary   to    make    Rubens 

144 


Flemish  School 

exactly  what  he  turned  out  to  be,  and  that  was  en-  Peter  Paul 

vironment.   Had  he  remained  in  Flanders  all  his  life  Rubens 

we  should  have  been  deprived  of  much  that  is  most 

characteristic  in  his  art.   He  was  too  big,  that  is  to  say, 

for  the  flower  pot.  He  needed  to  be  bedded  out,  so  that 

his  exuberant  natural  genius  might  have  the  proper 

opportunities  for  expanding  under  suitable  conditions. 

It  was  in  Venice  and  Mantua,  in  Florence  and  Rome 

that  he  found  himself,  and  took  his  measure  from  the 

giants. 

Rubens  was  born  in  1577  at  Cologne,  where  his 
father,  a  jurist  of  considerable  attainments,  had  taken 
refuge  from  the  disturbances  at  Antwerp  in  1566.  He 
was  christened  Peter  Paul  in  honour  of  the  saints  on 
whose  festival  his  birthday  fell — 29th  June.  At  the  age 
of  sixteen  he  was  placed  as  a  page  in  the  household  of 
the  widowed  Countess  of  Lalaing,  but  as  he  showed  a 
remarkable  love  for  drawing  he  was  apprenticed  first  to 
Tobias  Verhaegt,  a  landscape  painter,  and  then  to 
Adam  Van  Oort.  The  latter  was  so  unsuitable  a  master, 
however,  that  Rubens  was  soon  committed  to  the  care 
of  Otto  Vennius,  at  that  time  Court  painter  to  the 
Infanta  Isabella  and  the  Archduke  Albert,  her  husband ; 
he  prospered  so  well  that  in  1600  Vennius  advised  him 
to  go  to  Italy  to  finish  his  education  as  a  painter. 

Rubens  was  now  in  his  twenty-third  year,  and 
besides  being  proficient  in  painting  he  was  so  well 
grounded  in  the  classics  and  in  general  education  and 
manners  that  he  was  recommended  by  the  Archduke  to 
Vincenzio,  Duke  of  Gonzaga,  whose  palace  at  Mantua 
was  famous  for  containing  an  immense  collection  of  art 
treasures,  a  great  part  of  which  within  the  next  quarter 
of  a  century  were  purchased  by  King  Charles,  the  Duke 
of  Buckingham,  and  the  Earl  of  Arundel.  The  influence 

k  145 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

Peter  Paul  exerted  on  the  young  painter  by  surroundings  like  these 
Rubens  is  exemplified  in  a  note  by  Waagen : — 

"  Rubens  during  his  residence  at  Mantua  was  so 
pleased  with  the  Triumph  of  Julius  C<^5#/' by  Mantegna 
(the  large  cartoons  now  at  Hampton  Court  Palace),  that 
he  made  a  free  copy  of  one  of  them.  His  love  for  the 
fantastic  and  pompous  led  him  to  choose  that  with  the 
elephants  carrying  the  candelabra;  but  his  ardent  im- 
agination, ever  directed  to  the  dramatic,  could  not  be 
contented  with  this.  Instead  of  a  harmless  sheep,  which, 
in  Mantegna,  is  walking  by  the  side  of  the  foremost 
elephant,  Rubens  has  introduced  a  lion  and  a  lioness, 
which  growl  angrily  at  the  elephant.  The  latter  is 
looking  furiously  round,  and  is  on  the  point  of  striking 
the  lion  a  blow  with  his  trunk." 

That  Rubens  should  have  been  so  specially  attracted 
by  Mantegna  may  seem  a  little  surprising,  until  we 
remember  that  both  were  lovers  and  students  of 
classical  antiquities — a  fact  that  is  often  forgotten  in 
recalling  only  the  principal  achievements  of  either. 
But  it  is  important  to  know  what  sort  of  foundations 
underlie  the  most  splendid  erections  if  we  wish  to 
understand  how  they  came  into  existence  and  what 
their  place  is  in  the  history  of  the  arts.  A  glance  through 
Lempriere's  Dictionary  may  furnish  a  modern  Acade- 
mician with  a  subject  for  a  popular  picture, — but  that 
is  stucco  rather  than  foundation.  The  roots  of  tall  trees 
go  deep.  Rubens  when  he  was  in  Rome  studied  the 
antiquities  of  the  place  with  the  utmost  diligence  and 
zeal,  as  is  evidenced  by  a  book  published  by  his  brother 
Philip  in  1608. 

It  was  in  the  autumn  of  this  year  that  he  received 
the  news,  when  at  Genoa,  of  his  mother's  illness,  which 
induced  him  to  return  to  Antwerp  forthwith.  On  his 

146 


Flemish  School 

arrival  he  found  she  had  died  before  the  messenger  had  Peter  Paul 
reached  Genoa.  Rubens 

After  four  months  of  mourning  he  was  ready  to 
return  to  Flanders;  his  sojourn  of  eight  years  in  Italy 
had  so  far  influenced  him  that  he  might  have  remained 
there  indefinitely  had  it  not  been  for  the  Archduke  and 
the  Infanta  pressing  him  to  remain  at  Brussels  and 
attach  himself  to  their  Court.  Another  circumstance 
may  possibly  have  weighed  with  him ;  for  within  a  year 
we  find  him  married  to  Elizabeth  Brant,  the  daughter 
of  a  magistrate  of  Antwerp,  and  it  was  not  at  Brussels, 
but  at  Antwerp,  that  he  took  up  his  quarters.  Here  he 
proceeded  to  build  a  wonderful  house — said  to  have  cost 
him  60,000  florins — after  designs  of  his  own  in  the 
Italian  style,  which  he  filled  with  the  treasures  he  had 
collected  in  Italy. 

Rubens's  first  pictures  were  nearly  all  of  them  re- 
ligious subjects.  Before  he  went  to  Italy  he  had  painted 
axiA  doration  of  the  Kings  ,2iHoly  Trinity, and  the  Dead 
Christ  in  the  Arms  of  God  the  Father,  which  was  en- 
graved by  Bolswert.  When  Vincenzio  sent  him  to 
Rome  to  copy  pictures  there  for  him,  he  found  time  to 
execute  a  commission  which  he  received  from  the  Arch- 
duke Albert  to  paint  three  pictures  for  the  Church  of 
Santa  Croce  di  Gerusalamme,  namely,  the  Crowning 
with  Thorns,  the  Crucifixion,  and  the  Finding  of  the 
Cross.  A  year  later — after  returning  from  a  journey  to 
Madrid — he  painted  the  altar-piece  for  the  Church  of 
Santa  Maria  in  Vallicella,  in  which  the  influence  of 
Paul  Veronese  is  conspicuous.  At  Genoa,  he  painted 
the  Circumcision  and  S.  Ignatius  for  the  church  of 
the  Jesuits. 

One  of  the  first  pictures  which  he  painted  on  his 
return  to  Antwerp  was  an  altar-piece  for  the  private 

147 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Peter  Paul  chapel  of  the  Archduke  Albert,  of  the  Holy  Family, 
Rubens  This  picture  was  so  much  admired  that  the  members 
of  the  fraternity  of  S.  Ildefonso,  at  the  head  of  which 
was  the  Archduke  Albert,  commissioned  him  to  paint 
an  altar-piece  for  the  Chapel  of  the  Order  of  S.  James 
near  Brussels.  This  picture,  which  is  now  at  Vienna, 
represents  the  Virgin  enthroned,  surrounded  by  four 
female  saints,  putting  the  Cloak  of  the  Order  on  the 
shoulders  of  S.  Ildefonso.  On  the  wings  are  the  portraits 
of  the  Archduke  and  Isabella,  with  their  patron  saints. 
Thus  we  find  that,  like  the  earliest  painters  in  his 
own  country  as  well  as  in   Italy,  the  beginning  of 
Rubens's  art  was  under  the  influence  of  the  Church. 
Further,  we  find  that  the  most  celebrated  work  of  his 
earlier   period,  the  Descent  from  the  Cross,  in  the 
cathedral  at  Antwerp,  was  undertaken  in  circumstances 
which  abundantly  show  how  thoroughly  he  was  imbued 
with  the  principles  of  the  religion  he  professed.  The 
story  is  that  when  preparing  the  foundations  of  his 
new  house  he  had  unwittingly  trespassed  upon  a  piece 
of  ground  belonging  to  the  Company  of  Arquebusiers 
at  Antwerp.  A  lawsuit  was  threatened,  and  Rubens, 
with  all  the  vivacity  of  his  nature,  prepared  measures 
of  resistance.  But  when  his  friend  Rockox,  a  lawyer, 
had  proved  him  that  he  was  in  the  wrong,  he  imme- 
diately drew  back,  and  offered  to  paint  a  picture  by  way 
of  compensation.    The  offer  was  accepted,  and  the 
Arquebusiers  asked  for  a  representation  of  their  patron, 
S.   Christopher,  to  be  placed  in  his   chapel   in   the 
cathedral.    In   the   magnificent  spirit   which   always 
distinguished  the  man,  he  presented  to  his  adversaries 
not  merely  the  figure  of  the  great  Saint,  but  an  elaborate 
and  significant  illustration  of  his  name  (Christ-bearer). 
Thus,  in  the  centre,  the  disciples  are  lifting  the  Saviour 

148 


Flemish  School 

from  the  Cross ;  in  the  wings  the  Visitation — S.  Simeon  Peter  Paul 
with  Christ  in  his  arms,  S.  Christopher  with  Christ  on  Rubens 
his  shoulders,  and  an  old  hermit  bearing  a  light. 

Among  the  earlier  examples  of  secular  pictures  one 
of  the  most  famous  is  the  portrait  of  himself  and  his 
bride,  which  is  now  in  the  Munich  Gallery.  This  was 
painted  in  1609,  when  Rubens  was  over  thirty  years  old. 

In  1627  Rubens  went  to  Madrid  on  a  diplomatic 
errand,  but  still  as  a  painter,  as  we  shall  see  when 
discussing  his  relations  with  Velasquez. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  year  1629  he  was  sent  on 
another  diplomatic  mission,  this  time  to  England.  The 
choice  of  an  ambassador  could  not  have  fallen  on  any- 
one better  calculated  to  suit  the  personal  character  of 
Charles  I.,  who  was  a  passionate  lover  of  art  and  easily 
captivated  by  men  of  cultivated  intellect  and  refined 
manners.  Rubens  therefore,  in  whom  the  most  admir- 
able and  attractive  qualities  were  united  to  the  rarest 
genius  as  an  artist,  soon  succeeded  in  winning  the 
attention  and  regard  of  the  king.  At  Paris,  too,  Rubens 
had  made  friends  with  Buckingham,  who  had  purchased 
his  whole  collection  of  statues,  paintings,  and  other 
works  of  art  for  about  ten  thousand  pounds. 

It  was  during  his  stay  in  London  that  he  painted 
the  picture  now  in  the  National  Gallery,  called  Peace 
and  War  (No.  46).  This  was  intended  as  an  allegory 
representing  the  blessings  of  peace  and  the  horrors  of 
war,  which  he  presented  to  the  king  as  a  tangible 
recommendation  of  the  pacific  measures  which  he  had 
come  to  propose.  After  the  dispersion  of  the  Royal 
Collection  during  the  Commonwealth  this  picture  was 
acquired  by  the  Doria  family  at  Genoa,  where  it  was 
called,  oddly  enough,  Rubens  s  Family.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  the  children  are  those  of  Balthazar  Gerbier.  He 

149 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Peter  Paul also  painted  the  S.  George  and  the  Dragon,  which  is 
Rubens  now  at  Windsor  Castle,  and  made  the  sketches  for  the 
nine  pictures  on  the  ceiling  of  the  Banqueting  Hall — 
now  the  United  Service  Institution  Museum — in 
Whitehall.  It  was  on  this  occasion,  too,  that  he  received 
the  honour  of  knighthood  from  Charles  I.,  who  is  said 
to  have  presented  him  with  his  own  sword. 

In  the  following  year,  1630,  Rubens  married  his 
second  wife,  Helena  Fourment,  who  was  only  sixteen 
years  old — he  was  now  fifty-two  or  fifty-three.  She 
belonged  to  one  of  the  richest  and  most  respectable 
families  in  Antwerp,  and  was  by  no  means  unworthy  of 
the  compliment  of  being  painted  in  the  character  of  the 
Virgin  receiving  instruction  from  S.  Anne,  in  the  pic- 
ture which  is  still  at  Antwerp. 

In  1633  his  painting  was  again  interrupted  by  a 
diplomatic  mission,  this  time  to  Holland  ;  and  his  re- 
maining years  were  subject  to  more  distressing  inter- 
ruptions, from  the  gout,  to  which  he  finally  succumbed 
in  1640. 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  English  School  of 
painting  we  shall  see  how  much  of  its  revival  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  due  to  the  person- 
ality as  well  as  to  the  genius  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 
In  the  Netherlands,  likewise,  it  was  not  merely  a  great 
painter  that  was  required  to  raise  the  art  to  life,  but  a 
great  personality  as  well ;  and  to  the  influence  of  Rubens 
may  be  attributed  much  if  not  all  of  the  extraordinary 
fertility  of  the  Flemish  and  Dutch  Schools  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  Making  every  allowance  for  the  differ- 
ence in  the  times  in  which  the  Van  Eycks  and  Rubens 
were  working,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  former  lived  in 
too  rarefied  an  atmosphere  ever  to  influence  their  fellows, 
and  with  the  exception  of  Hans  Memling  they  left  no 

150 


PLATE  XXIV.— RUBENS 

PORTRAIT  OF  HELENE  FOURMENT,  THE  ARTIST'S 
SECOND   WIFE,  AND  TWO   CHILDREN 

Louvre,  Paris 


Flemish  School 

one  worthy  to  carry  on  their  tradition.  Rubens  showed  Peter  Paul 
his  contemporaries  that  art  was  a  mistress  who  could  be  Rubens 
served  in  many  ways  that  were  yet  unthought  of,  and 
that  she  did  not  by  any  means  disdain  the  tribute  of 
other  than  religious  votaries.  Beginning,  as  we  have 
pointed  out,  with  sacred  subjects,  Rubens  soon  turned  to 
the  study  of  the  classics,  and  found  in  them  not  so  much 
the  classical  severity  that  Mantegna  had  sought  for  as 
the  pagan  spirit  of  fulness  and  freedom.  "I  am  con- 
vinced that  to  reach  the  highest  perfection  as  a  painter," 
he  himself  writes  "it  is  necessary,  not  only  to  be 
acquainted  with  the  ancient  statues,  but  we  must  be 
inwardly  imbued  with  the  thorough  comprehension 
of  them.  An  insight  into  the  laws  which  pertain  to 
them  is  necessary  before  they  can  be  turned  to  any  real 
account  in  painting.  This  will  prevent  the  artist  from 
transferring  to  the  canvas  that  which  in  sculpture  is 
dependent  on  the  material  employed — marble,  for  in- 
stance. Many  inexperienced  and  indeed  experienced 
painters  do  not  distinguish  the  material  from  the  form 
which  it  expresses — the  stone  from  the  figure  which 
is  carved  in  it;  that  which  the  artist  forces  from  the 
dead  marble,  from  the  universal  laws  of  art  which  are 
independent  of  it. 

"One  leading  rule  may  be  laid  down,  that  inasmuch 
as  the  best  statues  of  antiquity  are  of  great  value  for 
the  painter,  the  inferior  ones  are  not  only  worthless  but 
mischievous:  for  while  beginners  fancy  they  can  per- 
form wonders  if  they  can  borrow  from  these  statues,  and 
transfer  something  hard,  heavy,  with  sharp  outlines  and 
an  exaggerated  anatomy  to  their  canvas,  this  can  only 
be  done  by  outraging  the  truth  of  nature,  since  instead 
of  representing  flesh  with  colours,  they  do  but  give 
colour  to  marble. 

151 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Peter  Paul  "In  studying  even  the  best  of  the  antique  statues, 
Rubens  the  painter  must  consider  and  avoid  many  things  which 
are  not  connected  with  the  art  of  the  sculptor,  but  solely 
with  the  material  in  which  he  worked.  I  may  mention 
particularly  the  difference  in  the  shading.  In  nature, 
owing  to  the  transparency  of  the  flesh,  the  skin,  and  the 
cartilages,  the  shading  of  many  parts  is  moderated, 
which  in  sculpture  appear  hard  and  abrupt,  for  the 
shadows  become  doubled,  as  it  were,  owing  to  the 
natural  and  unavoidable  thickness  of  the  stone.  To  this 
must  be  added  that  certain  less  important  parts  which 
lie  on  the  surface  of  the  human  body,  as  the  veins,  folds 
of  the  skin,  etc.,  which  change  their  appearance  with 
every  movement,  and  which  owing  to  the  pliancy  of  the 
skin  become  easily  extended  or  contracted,  are  not  ex- 
pressed at  all  in  the  works  of  sculptors  in  general — 
though  it  is  true  that  sculptors  of  high  talent  have 
marked  them  in  some  degree.  The  painter,  however, 
must  never  omit  to  introduce  them — with  proper 
discretion. 

"In  the  manner  in  which  lights  fall,  too,  statues  are 
totally  different  from  nature;  for  the  natural  brilliancy 
of  marble,  and  its  own  light,  throws  out  the  surface  far 
more  strongly  than  in  nature,  and  even  dazzles  the  eye." 

I  have  quoted  rather  more  of  this  passage  (from  Mrs 
Jameson's  translation)  than  I  at  first  intended,  because  it 
discloses  one  of  the  most  important  secrets  of  the 
successful  painting  of  figures,  by  other  artists  besides 
Rubens  himself — George  Romney  for  example.  The 
advantages  of  a  "classical  education"  at  our  English 
public  schools  and  universities  are  questioned,  and  there 
can  be  do  doubt  that  for  the  bulk  of  the  pupils  they  are 
questionable.  But  Rubens  shows  that  the  case  is  exactly 
the  same  for  painters  studying  classical  art  as   for 

152 


Flemish  School 

scholars  acquainting  themselves  with  classical  literature.  Peter  Paul 
A  superficial  study  of  the  antique,  just  because  it  is  Rubens 
antique,  is  of  no  use  at  all,  but  rather  a  hindrance.  But 
if  the  study  is  properly  undertaken,  there  is  no  surer 
foundation,  in  art  or  literature,  on  which  to  build.  It 
makes  no  difference  what  is  built;  the  foundation  is 
there,  beneath  the  surface,  and  whatever  is  placed  upon 
it  will  stand  for  all  time. 

The  remarkable  freedom  and  originality  of  Rubens's 
treatment  of  classical  subjects  is  thus  accounted  for. 
Under  the  surface  is  his  familiarity  with  the  antique, 
but  instead  of  carrying  this  above  ground,  he  builds  on 
it  a  palace  in  accordance  with  the  times  and  circum- 
stances in  which  he  lived.  The  principles  of  classical  art 
underlie  the  modern  structure.  Among  his  numerous 
works  of  classical  mythology  the  picture  at  Munich  of 
C^5/<?r«;^/^//^^carryingofTthedaughtersofLeucippus 
is  worthy  of  being  first  mentioned.  The  Dioscuri 
mounted  on  spirited  steeds,  one  of  which  is  wildly  rear- 
ing, are  in  the  actof  capturing  the  twodamsels.  Thecalm 
expression  of  strength  in  the  male,  and  the  violent  but 
fruitless  resistance  of  the  female  figures,  form  a  striking 
contrast.  Although  the  former  are  merely  represented 
as  two  coarse  and  powerful  men,  and  the  women  have 
only  common  and  rather  redundant  forms  and  Flemish 
faces,  yet  the  picture  produces  as  a  whole  such  a  striking 
effect,  owing  to  the  admirable  manner  in  which  the 
subject  is  conceived,  the  power  of  imagination  which  it 
displays,  and  the  exquisite  colouring  and  tone,  that  it 
would  never  occur  to  any  unprejudiced  spectator  to  re- 
gret the  absence  of  antique  forms  and  character. 

Two  other  pictures  of  this  class  are  singled  out  for 
description  by  Waagen  as  masterpieces.  One  is  the 
Rape  of  Proserpine,  at  Blenheim, — Pluto  in  his  car, 

153 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Peter  Paul  drawn  by  fiery  brown  steeds,  is  carrying  off  the  goddess, 
Rubens  who  is  struggling  in  his  arms.  The  other  is  the  Battle 
of  the  Amazons,  in  the  Munich  Gallery,  which  was 
painted  by  Rubens  for  Van  der  Geest.  With  great 
judgment  he  has  chosen  the  moment  when  the  Amazons 
are  driven  back  by  the  Greeks  over  the  river  Thermodon: 
the  battle  takes  place  upon  a  bridge,  and  thus  the  horror 
of  the  scene  is  carried  to  the  highest  pitch. 

Both  in  Flanders  and  in  Italy  Rubens  had  been 
brought  into  close  contact  with  all  the  magnificence  and 
splendour  which  belonged  to  those  gorgeous  times,  and 
he  delighted  in  representing  the  pomp  of  worldly  state 
and  everything  connected  with  it.  Of  all  sacred  sub- 
jects none  afforded  such  a  rich  field  for  display  as  the 
Adoration  of  the  Kings  \  he  has  painted  this  subject  no 
less  than  twelve  times,  and  his  fancy  appears  quite  inex- 
haustible in  the  invention  of  the  rich  offerings  of  the 
eastern  sages.  Among  the  subjects  of  a  secular  character 
the  history  of  Marie  de'  Medici,  the  triumph  of  the 
Emperor  Charles  V.,  and  the  Sultan  at  the  head  of  his 
Army,  gave  him  abundant  opportunities  of  portraying 
Oriental  and  European  pageantry,  with  rich  arms  and 
regalia,  and  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war.  Pro- 
fusion— pouring  forth  of  abundance,  that  was  one  of 
Rubens's  most  salient  characteristics.  Exuberance, 
plenty,  fatness. 

As  a  painter  of  animals,  again,  Rubens  opened  out 
a  new  field  for  the  energy  of  his  fellow-countrymen, 
which  was  tilled  so  industriously  by  Frans  Snyders  and 
Jan  Fyt,  and  in  a  lesser  degree  by  the  Dutchmen  Jan 
Weenix,  father  and  son,  and  Hondecoeter.  That  the 
naive  instincts,  agility,  and  vivacity  of  animals  must 
have  had  a  great  attraction  for  Rubens  is  easily  under- 
stood.  Those  which  are  remarkable  for  their  courage, 

154 


Flemish  School 

strength,  intelligence,  swiftness — as  lions,  tigers,  wild  Peter  Paul 
boars,  wolves,  horses,  dogs — particularly  interested  him.  Rubens 
He  paid  special  attention  to  animals,  seized  every  oppor- 
tunity of  studying  them  from  nature,  and  attained  the 
most  wonderful  skill  and  facility  inpainting  them.  It  is 
related  that  he  had  a  remarkably  fine  and  powerful  lion 
brought  to  his  house  in  order  to  study  him  in  every 
variety  of  attitude,  and  that  on  one  occasion  observing 
him  yawn,  he  was  so  pleased  with  the  action  that  he 
wished  to  paint  it.  He  therefore  desired  the  keeper  to 
tickle  the  animal  under  the  chin  to  make  him  repeatedly 
open  his  jaws  :  at  length  the  lion  became  savage  at  this 
treatment,  and  cast  such  furious  glances  at  his  keeper, 
that  Rubens  attended  to  his  warning  and  had  the  beast 
removed.  The  keeper  is  said  to  have  been  torn  to  pieces 
by  the  lion  shortly  afterwards:  apparently  the  animal 
had  never  forgotten  the  affront  put  upon  him. 

By  such  means — though  it  is  to  be  hoped  not  always 
with  such  lamentableresults — Rubens  succeeded  in  seiz- 
ing and  portraying  the  peculiar  character  and  instinct  of 
animals — their  quick  movements  and  manifestations  of 
strength — with  such  perfect  truth  and  energy  that  not 
one  among  the  modern  painters  has  approached  him  in 
this  respect — certainly  not  Landseer,  as  Mrs  Jameson 
would  ask  us  to  believe. 

The  celebrated  Wolf  Hunt ,  in  the  collection  of  Lord 
Ashburton,  was  one  of  the  earliest,  painted  in  1612  for 
the  Spanish  General  Legranes  only  three  years  after 
Rubens's  return  from  Italy.  In  this  picture,  his  bold 
creative  fancy  and  dramatic  turn  of  mind  are  remarkably 
conspicuous — even  at  this  early  stage  in  his  career. 
Catherine  Brant,  his  first  wife,  on  a  brown  horse,  with 
a  falcon  in  her  hand,  is  near  her  husband  ;  a  second 
huntsman  on  horseback,  three  on  foot,  another  old  wolf 

155 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Peter  Paul and  three  young  ones,  with  several  dogs,  complete  the 
Rubens  composition,  which  is  most  carefully  painted  in  a  clear 
and  powerful  tone  throughout. 

Of  scenes  of  peasant  life,  one  of  his  earliest,  and  yet 
the  most  famous,  is  the  Kermesse,  which  is  now  in  the 
Louvre.  A  boisterous,  merry  party  of  about  seventy 
persons  are  assembled  in  front  of  a  country  ale-house  ; 
several  are  wildly  dancing  in  a  circle,  others  are  drink- 
ing and  shouting ;  others,  again,  are  making  love. 

The  Garden  of  Love,  equally  famous,  was  one  of 
Rubens's  latest  pictures.  Of  this  there  are  several 
versions  in  existence,  of  which  those  at  Dresden  and 
Madrid  may  be  considered  as  originals.  Several  loving 
couples  in  familiar  conversation  are  lingering  before 
the  entrance  of  a  grotto,  the  front  of  which  is  orna- 
mented with  a  rustic  portico.  Amongst  them  we  recog- 
nise the  portraits  of  Rubens  and  his  second  wife,  his 
pupil  Van  Dyck,  and  Simon  de  Vos. 

As  Rubens  united  to  such  great  and  various  know- 
ledge the  disposition  to  communicate  it  to  others  in  the 
most  friendly  and  candid  manner,  it  was  natural  that 
young  painters  of  talent  who  were  admitted  into  his 
atelier  should  soon  attain  a  high  degree  of  skill  and 
cultivation. 

At  "the  House  in  the  Wood,"  not  far  from  the 
Hague,  there  is  a  salon  decorated  entirely  by  the  pupils 
of  Rubens.  The  principal  picture,  which  is  one  of  the 
largest  oil  paintings  in  the  world,  is  by  Jacob  Jordaens, 
and  represents  the  triumph  of  Prince  Frederick  Henry 
— the  object  of  the  whole  scheme  being  the  glorification 
of  the  House  of  Orange,  in  1649.  Most  of  the  other 
pictures  are  of  Theodore  van  Thulden,  who  in  these 
works  has  emulated  his  illustrious  master  in  the  force 
and  brilliance  of  his  colouring. 

156 


Flemish  School 

But  it  is  not  in  any  particular  salon  or  palace  that  Peter  Paul 
we  must  look  for  the  effects  of  Rubens'  influence ;  it  was  Rubens 
far  wider  than  to  be  able  to  be  contained  within  four 
walls.  In  portraiture  he  gave  us  Van  Dyck;  in  historical 
subjects,  Jacob  Jordaens;  in  animal  painting  and  still 
life,  Frans  Snyders,  Jan  Fyt,  and  the  brothers  Weenix. 
In  pictures  of  everyday  life  he  gave  us  Adrian  Brouwer 
and  David  Teniers;  in  landscape,  Everdingen,  Ruisdael 
and  Waterloo.  ''Thus  was  the  art  of  painting  in  the 
Netherlands  remodelled  in  every  department,"  says 
Waagen  in  the  concluding  sentence  of  his  memoir,  "by 
the  energies  of  a  single  great  and  gifted  mind.  Thus 
was  Rubens  the  originator  of  its  second  great  epoch,  to 
which  we  are  indebted  for  such  numerous  and  masterly 
performances  in  every  branch  of  the  art." 


Ill 

THE  PUPILS  OF  RUBENS 

David  Teniers  the  elder,  who  was  born  at  Antwerp 
in  1582,  received  the  first  rudiments  of  his  art  from 
Rubens,  who  soon  perceived  in  him  the  happy  advances 
towards  excelling  in  his  profession  that  raised  him  to 
the  head  of  his  school.  The  prejudice  in  favour  of  his 
son,  David  Teniers  the  younger,  is  so  great  that  the 
father  is  generally  esteemed  but  a  middling  painter;  and 
his  pictures  not  worth  the  inquiry  of  a  collector.  His 
hand  is  so  little  distinguished,  however,  that  the  paint- 
ings of  the  father  are  often  taken  for  those  of  the  son. 
The  father  was  certainly  the  inventor  of  the  manner, 
which  the  son,  who  was  his  pupil,  only  improved  with 
what  little  was  wanting  to  perfection. 

157 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Pupils  Rubens  was  astonished  at  his  early  success,  and 
of  Ruben s  though  he  followed  the  manner  of  Adrian  Brouwer, 
looked  on  him  as  his  most  deserving  pupil  by  the 
brightness  of  genius  that  he  showed.  He  soon  saved 
enough  money  to  undertake  the  journey  to  Italy,  and 
when  at  Rome  he  established  himself  with  Adam 
Elsheimer,  who  was  then  in  great  vogue.  In  Els- 
heimer's  manner  he  soon  became  a  perfect  master, 
without  neglecting  at  the  same  time  the  study  of  other 
and  greater  masters,  endeavouring  to  penetrate  into  the 
deepest  mysteries  of  their  practice.  An  abode  of  ten 
years  in  Italy,  and  the  influence  of  Elsheimer  combined 
with  that  of  Rubens,  formed  him  into  what  he  became. 

When  he  returned  to  his  own  country  he  employed 
himself  entirely  in  painting  small  pictures  filled  with 
figures  of  people  drinking  and  merry-making,  and 
numbers  of  peasants  and  country  women.  He  displayed 
so  much  taste  in  these  that  the  demand  for  them  was 
universal.  Even  Rubens  thought  them  an  ornament  to 
his  collection. 

Teniers  drew  his  own  character  in  his  pictures,  and 
in  the  subjects  he  usually  expressed  everything  tends 
to  joy  and  pleasure.  Always  employed  in  copying  after 
nature  whatsoever  presented  itself,  he  taught  his  two 
sons,  David  and  Abraham,  to  follow  his  example,  and 
accustomed  them  to  paint  nothing  but  from  that 
infallible  model,  by  which  means  they  both  became 
excellent  painters.  These  were  his  only  disciples,  and 
he  died  at  Antwerp  in  1649. 

The  only  distinction  between  his  works  and  those 
of  his  son,  David  Teniers  the  younger,  is  that  in  the 
latter  you  discover  a  finer  touch,  a  fresher  brush,  a 
greater  choice  of  attitudes,  and  a  better  disposition  of 
the  figures.  The  father,  too,  retained  something  of  the 

158 


Flemish  School 

tone  of  Italy  in  his  colouring,  which  was  stronger  than  The  Pupils 
his  son's;  but  his  pictures  have  less  harmony  and  union  of  Rubens 
— though  to  tell  the  truth,  when  the  father  took  pains 
to  finish  his  picture,  he  very  nearly  resembled  his  son. 

The  latter,  David  Teniers  the  younger,  was  born 
in  1610.  Hewas  nicknamed  the  Ape  of  painting,  from  his 
powers  of  imitation.  The  Archduke  Leopold  William 
made  him  a  gentleman  of  his  bedchamber,  and  he  made 
copies  of  all  his  pictures.  He  came  to  England  to  buy 
several  Italian  pictures  for  Count  Fuensaldegna,  who 
on  his  return  heaped  favours  upon  him.  Don  John  of 
Austria  and  the  King  of  Spain  set  so  great  a  value  upon 
his  pictures  that  they  built  a  gallery  set  apart  to  pre- 
serve them — there  are  no  less  than  fifty-two  in  thePrado 
Gallery  to-day. 

His  principal  talent  was  landscape  adorned  with 
small  figures.  He  painted  men  drinking  and  smoking, 
alchemists,  corps  de  garde,  temptations  of  S.  Anthony, 
and  country  fairs  and  merry-makings.  His  small  pictures 
are  superior  to  his  large  ones.  His  execution  displays 
the  greatest  ease;  the  leafing  of  his  trees  is  light,  his 
skies  are  admirable:  his  small  figures  have  an  exquisite 
expression  and  a  most  lively  touch,  and  the  characters 
are  marked  out  with  the  greatest  truth.  From  the  thin- 
ness of  the  colours  his  works  seem  to  have  been  finished 
at  once;  they  are  generally  clear  in  all  their  parts,  and 
Teniers  had  the  art,  without  dark  shades,  to  relieve  his 
lights  by  other  lights,  so  well  managed  as  to  produce 
the  effect  he  wanted,  an  art  which  few  besides  himself 
have  attained.  He  died  at  Antwerp  in  1694. 

Frans  Snyders  was  born  at  Antwerp  in  the  year 
1587,  ten  years  later,  that  is  to  say,  than  Rubens.  He 
received  his  first  instruction  in  the  art  of  painting  from 
Henry  van  Balen.    His  genius  at  first  displayed  itself 

159 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Pupils  only  inpaintingfruit.  He  afterwards  attempted  animals, 
of  Rubens  in  which  kind  of  study  he  succeeded  so  well  that  he  sur- 
passed all  that  had  ever  excelled  before  him.  He  stayed 
for  some  time  in  Italy,  and  the  works  he  met  with  there 
by  Castiglione  proved  a  spur  to  his  genius  to  attempt 
outdoing  him  in  painting  animals.  When  he  returned 
to  Flanders  he  fixed  his  ordinary  abode  at  Brussels, 
where  he  was  made  painter  to  the  Archduke  and 
Duchess,  and  became  attached  to  the  house  of  Spain. 
Twenty-two  of  his  pictures  are  in  the  Prado  Gallery. 

When  Snyders  required  large  figures  in  his  com- 
positions both  Rubens  and  Jordaens  took  pleasure  in 
assisting  him,  and  Rubens  in  turn  borrowed  the  assist- 
ance of  Snyders  to  paint  the  ground  of  his  pictures  ; 
thus  they  mutually  assisted  each  other  in  their  labours, 
while  Snyders'  manly  and  vigorous  manner  was  quite 
able  to  hold  its  own  even  when  joined  with  that  of  the 
great  master. 

Anthony  van  Dyck  was  born  at  Antwerp  in  1599, 
less  than  three  months  before  Velasquez  at  Seville. 
Both  became  so  famous  in  their  capacity  of  Court 
painters  that  the  rest  of  their  achievement  is  popularly 
regarded  as  little  more  than  a  bye-product. 

In  the  case  of  Van  Dyck  there  is  the  more  excuse 
for  the  English  public,  inasmuch  as,  like  Holbein  before 
him,  he  was  exclusively  employed  while  in  this  country 
in  the  production  of  portraits  ;  and  as  "  his  works  are 
so  frequent  in  England,"  as  Horace  Walpole  observes 
in  the  opening  sentenceof  his  memoir  in  the  "Anecdotes 
of  Painting,"  "  that  the  generality  of  our  people  can 
scarce  avoid  thinking  him  their  countryman,"  it  is  easy 
enough  to  forget  that  he  only  spent  the  last  nine  years  of 
his  life  here. 

Again,   the  insatiable  craze  of  the  English  and 

160 


Flemish  School 

American  public  for  portraits  has  helped  to  obscure  the  The  Pupils 
extent  of  Van  Dyck's  capabilities  in  other  directions,  of  Rubens 
and  while  the  National  Gallery  contains  not  a  single 
subject-piece  from  his  hand,  more  and  more  thousands 
are  continually  spent  in  the  acquisition  of  more  and 
more  portraits.  The  bewitching  Cupid  and  Psyche  in 
Queen  Mary's  closet  at  Hampton  Court,  painted  a  year 
before  his  death,  is  scarcely  known  to  exist ! 

At  the  same  time  it  would  be  useless  to  deny  that 
Van  Dyck's  principal  claim  to  his  place  among  the 
greatest  masters  rests  chiefly  upon  portraiture.  The 
point  I  wish  to  make  is  that  portrait  painting  never  yet 
made  a  great  master,  but  that  none  but  a  great  master 
ever  became  a  great  portrait  painter  ;  and  so  long  as 
we  are  only  permitted  to  see  the  particular  achievement 
of  the  artist  in  our  public  galleries,  so  long  is  it  likely 
that  we  shall  continue  to  be  flooded  with  mediocre 
likenesses  of  fashionable  people  by  painters  whose 
highest  or  whose  only  achievement  they  constitute. 
Anyone  can  write  a  "  short  story  "  for  the  cheaper  sort 
of  modern  journal;  only  writers  like  Hardy,  Stevenson, 
or  Kipling  can  give  us  a  masterpiece  in  little. 

It  was  said  that  Rubens  advised  Van  Dyck  to 
devote  himself  to  portraiture  out  of  jealousy :  but  that 
is  hardly  in  accordance  with  what  we  know  of  his 
generous  nature.  If  the  advice  was  given  at  all  we  may 
be  sure  that  it  was  given  in  a  friendly  spirit.  But  there 
was  something  in  the  temperament  of  Van  Dyck  which 
peculiarly  fitted  him  for  the  Court,  apart  from  any 
question  as  to  his  excellence  in  any  particular  branch  of 
his  art,  and  it  is  evident  that  the  personality  of  Rubens, 
and  his  connection  with  the  rich  and  mighty  of  the 
earth,  influenced  him  almost  as  much  as  did  his  art. 
How  much  he  owed  to  Rubens,  and  how  much  Rubens 
l  161 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Pupils  owed  to  him  in  painting  is  a  matter  that  is  arguable. 

of  Rubens  He  had  been  several  years  with  Van  Balen  before  he 
entered  the  studio  of  Rubens,  when  eighteen  years  old, 
not  as  a  pupil  but  as  an  assistant.  Here  he  not  only  had 
the  practical  task  of  painting  Rubens's  compositions 
for  him,  in  company  with  numerous  others,  but  had  also 
theadvantage  of  studying  the  works  of  Titian  and  other 
of  the  great  Italian  masters  in  Rubens's  famous  collec- 
tion. If  the  hand  of  Van  Dyck  is  traceable  in  some  of 
the  pictures  of  Rubens  at  this  period,  so  the  spirit  of 
Rubens  is  very  obvious  in  those  of  Van  Dyck.  The 
chief  thing  to  be  remembered  is  that  in  these  early 
days  he  was  not  painting  portraits.  His  earliest  works, 
in  which  the  influence  of  Titian  is  perceptible  as  well  as 
that  of  Rubens,  are  the  Christ  bearing  the  Cross,  in 
S.  Paul's  at  Antwerp,  painted  in  1618;  the  5*.  Sebastian 
at  Munich,  and  the  Christ  Mocked,  at  Berlin.  The 
familiar  portrait  of  Cornelius  van  der  Geest  in  the 
National  Gallery,  is  one  of  his  very  earliest,  probably 
before  1620.  Again,  on  his  first  visit  to  Genoa,  in  1621, 
on  the  advice  of  Rubens,  his  ambition  was  not  to  paint 
portraits,  as  on  his  second  visit  some  years  later,  but  to 
rival  Rubens  in  the  composition  of  great  historical 
pieces.  It  was  not  until  1627,  when  he  left  behind  him 
in  Genoa  the  superb  series  of  Balbi,  Brignole-Sala, 
Cattaneo,  and  Lomellini  portraits,  and  returned  to 
Antwerp  to  undertake  those  such  as  the  Le  Roys  at 
Hertford  House,  or  the  Beatrice  de  Cusance  at  Windsor, 
that  he  had  really  become  a  portrait  painter.  Even  then, 
he  was  still  determined  not  to  yield  to  Rubens  at 
Antwerp,  and  painted,  amongst  other  subjects,  the 
Rinaldo  and  Armida  for  Charles  I.  It  was  only  at 
the  solicitation  of  George  Geldorp,  a  schemer  as  well  as 
a  painter,  that  he  consented  at  length,  in  1632,  to  come 

162 


Flemish  School 

to  England  ;  and  it  was  only  the  welcome  afforded  to  The  Pupils 
him  by  Charles  that  induced  him  to  settle  here.  of  Rubens 

Two  considerations  of  personal  vanity  may  be  sug- 
gested as  actuating  Charles  to  be  specially  indulgent  to 
Van  Dyck — an  indulgence  of  which  the  results  pos- 
terity should  not  omit  to  credit  to  the  sad  account  of  the 
martyr — first,  that  his  father  had  failed  to  retain  the 
painter  in  his  service,  and  second,  that  Velasquez,  who 
had  made  a  sketch  of  him  on  his  mad  visit  to  Madrid  in 
1623,  was  then  immortalising  Philip.  Velasquez  being 
out  of  the  question,  why  not  Van  Dyck!  An  excellent 
idea!  Especially  when  instead  of  dwarfs,  buffoons,  and 
idiots,  the  English  Court  contained  some  exceedingly 
fine  material  besides  the  royal  family  for  the  artist  to 
exercise  his  talent  upon. 

After  this,  Flanders  knew  Van  Dyck  no  more,  save 
for  a  year  or  two's  sojourn  from  1633- 1635  when  he 
painted  one  or  two  magnificent  portraits,  and  then  re- 
turned to  England,  where  he  died  in  1641.  With  the 
death  of  Rubens  the  year  before,  Flemish  painting  had 
suffered  another  eclipse;  and  though  Snyders  lived  till 
1657,  and  Jordaens  and  the  younger  Teniers  continued 
till  late  in  the  century,  no  fresh  seedlings  appeared,  and 
the  soil  again  became  barren.  Rubens  and  Van  Dyck 
were  both  too  big  for  the  little  garden — their  growth 
overspread  Europe. 


163 


DUTCH  SCHOOL 

I 
FRANS  HALS 

Meantime  we  must  turn  our  attention  to  Holland,  Frans  Hals 
where  Frans  Hals,  who  was  born  only  three  years 
later  than  Rubens,  namely  in  1580,  was  the  forerunner 
of  Rembrandt,  Van  der  Heist,  Bol,  Lely,  and  a  host 
more  of  greater  or  less  painters,  who  made  their  country 
as  famous  in  the  seventeenth  century  for  art  as  their 
fathers  had  made  it  in  the  sixteenth  for  arms.  With- 
out going  into  the  complications  of  the  political  history 
of  the  Netherlands  at  this  period,  it  is  important  never- 
theless to  remember  that  while  the  Flemish  provinces 
remained  Catholicunder  Spain,  thenorthern  states, after 
heroic  struggles,  formed  themselves  into  a  Republic;  so 
that  while  it  is  difficult  to  draw  a  hard  and  fast  line 
between  what  was  Dutch  and  what  was  Flemish  in 
estimating  the  influence  of  one  particular  painter  upon 
another,  there  is  no  question  at  all  as  to  vital  difference 
between  the  conditions  which  led  to  the  production  of 
the  pictures  of  the  two  schools.  The  Flemish  pictures 
were  for  the  Church  and  for  the  Court,  the  Dutch  for 
the  house,  the  Guildhall,  or  the  bourgeoisie.  The  for- 
mer were  aristocratic,  the  latter  democratic.  Rubens 
and  Van  Dyck  were  aristocrats,  Hals  and  Rembrandt 
democrats.     Rubens  painted  altar-pieces,  for  the  great 

165 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Frans  Hals  churches  or  cathedrals  or  for  the  chapels  of  his  pat- 
rons. Rembrandt  painted  Bible  stories  for  whoever 
would  purchase  them.  Van  Dyck  painted  the  portraits 
of  kings  and  nobles.  Hals  painted  the  rough  soldiers 
and  sailors,  singly,  or  in  the  great  groups  into  which 
they  formed  themselves  as  Guilds.  For  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  painting,  neither  Church  nor  Court 
were  its  patrons. 

In  any  age  or  under  any  circumstances  Frans  Hals 
would  have  seemed  a  remarkable  painter,  but  to 
measure  his  extraordinary  genius  to  its  full  height  we 
must  try  to  realise  what  those  times  and  those  circum- 
stances were.  In  Florence  and  Venice,  as  we  have 
seen,  there  were  great  schools  of  painting,  and  in  Flor- 
ence especially,  the  whole  city  existed  in  an  atmosphere 
of  art.  There  was  no  escape  from  it.  In  Haarlem, 
where  Hals  spent  his  youth  (he  was  born  in  Antwerp), 
there  was  no  such  state  of  affairs.  There  were  no 
chapels  to  be  decorated,  no  courtiers  to  be  flattered. 
The  country  was  seething  with  the  effects  of  war,  and 
the  whole  population  were  ready  for  it  again  at  a 
moment's  notice.  There  were  plenty  of  heroes — every 
man  was  one — but  not  of  the  romantic  sort.  They 
were  all  bluff,  hardy  fellows,  who  wanted  to  get  on  with 
their  business.  Who  would  have  thought  that  they 
wanted  to  have  their  portraits  painted?  And  who, 
accordingly,  could  have  induced  them  to  do  so  except 
a  bluff,  roystering  genius  like  Hals,  who  slashed  them 
down  on  canvas  before  they  had  time  to  stop  him  ? 
Once  it  got  wind  that  Hals  was  such  a  good  fellow,  and 
that  he  dashed  off  a  portrait  to  the  life  in  as  little  time 
as  it  took  to  pass  the  time  of  day  with  him,  he  had 
plenty  of  business,  and  from  painting  single  portraits 
he  was  commissioned  to  glorify  the  Guilds  by  depicting 

166 


Dutch  School 

their  banquets,  which  he  did  with  almost  as  much  Frans  Hals 
speed  and  considerably  more  fidelity  than  the  limelight 
man  at  a  City  dinner  in  these  times.  His  first  great 
group — The  Archers  of  S.  George,  at  Haarlem — has 
all  the  appearance  of  being  painted  instantaneously  as 
the  banqueters  stood  around  the  table  before  dis- 
persing. 

When  we  think  of  the  cultured  Rubens,  brought 
up  in  the  atmosphere  of  Courts,  and  studying  for  years 
among  the  finest  paintings  and  painters  in  Italy,  and 
compare  him  with  this  low,  ignorant  fellow,  who  had 
never  been  outside  the  Netherlands,  do  we  not  find  his 
genius  still  more  amazing  ?  Nowadays  we  see  a  por- 
trait by  Hals  surrounded  with  the  finest  works  of  the 
greatest  painters  in  all  times  and  in  all  lands,  and  see 
how  well  it  stands  the  comparison.  But  our  admira- 
tion must  be  increased  a  hundredfold,  when  we  know 
that  he  was  without  any  of  the  training  or  tradition  of 
a  great  artist,  and  that  it  must  have  been  by  sheer 
character  and  genius  alone  that  he  forced  his  art  upon 
his  commercial,  though  heroic  public. 

One  thing  especially  it  is  interesting  to  notice  about 
the  Dutch  portraits  of  the  early  Republican  period, 
namely,  that  they  are  obviously  inspired  by  the  plea- 
sure of  having  a  living,  speaking  likeness  rather  than 
by  pride  and  ostentation.  Bluff  and  swaggering  as 
some  of  Hals's  portraits  of  men  appear  to  be — notably 
The  Laughing  Cavalier,  at  Hertford  House — that  is 
only  because  the  subjects  were  bluff  and  swaggering 
fellows — swaggering,  that  is  tosay,in  the  consciousness 
of  their  ability  and  their  readiness  to  defend  their 
country  and  their  homes  again,  if  need  be,  against  the 
tyrant.  But  these  swaggerers  are  the  exception,  and 
the  prevailing  impression  conveyed  is  that  of  honest, 

167 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Frans  Hals  if  determined,  bluffness.  They  are  not  posing,  these 
jolly  Dutchmen,  they  are  sitting  or  standing,  for  Hals 
to  paint  them  just  as  they  would  sit  or  stand  to  be 
measured  for  a  suit  of  clothes.  Look  at  the  heads  of 
the  man  and  the  woman  in  the  National  Gallery. 
Could  anything  be  more  natural  and  unassuming? 
Look  at  the  Laughing  Cavalier >  and  ask  if  it  is  not 
the  man  himself,  as  Hals  saw  and  knew  him,  not  a 
faked  up  hero  ?  Hals  caught  him  in  his  best  clothes, 
that  is  all.  He  did  not  put  them  on  to  be  painted  in 
— he  was  out  on  a  jaunt.  Look  at  Hals's  women,  how 
pleased  they  are  to  be  painted,  just  as  they  are. 

Poor  Hals,  he  was  a  good,  honest  fellow,  though 
sadly  given  to  drink  and  low  company.  But  for  sheer 
genius  he  has  never  had  an  equal.  The  vast  number 
of  his  paintings — many  of  which  now  only  exist  in 
copies — shows  that  with  every  predilection  to  ease  and 
comfort,  he  could  not  help  painting — it  simply  welled 
out  of  him.  It  was  a  natural  gift  which  seems  to  have 
needed  no  labour  and  no  study. 

It  is  certain  that  this  fecundity  was  a  very  potent 
factor  in  the  development  of  the  Dutch  School  of 
painting.  Had  Hals  confined  his  talent  to  painting 
the  portraits  of  the  highest  in  the  land,  which  would 
never  have  been  seen  by  the  public  at  large,  it  is  im- 
probable that  such  a  business-like  community  would 
have  produced  many  painters.  But  Hals  must  have 
popularised  painting  much  more  than  we  generally 
suppose.  An  example  occurs  to  me  in  the  picture  of 
The  Rommeipot  Player,  of  which  no  less  than  thirteen 
versions  are  enumerated  by  De  Groot,  none  of  which 
can  claim  to  be  the  original.  One  is  at  Wilton, 
another  in  Sir  Frederick  Cook's  gallery  at  Richmond, 
and  athird  at  Arthingworth  Hall  in  Northamptonshire. 

168 


PLATE  XXV.— FRANS   HALS 
PORTRAIT  OF   A  LADY 

Louvre,  Paris 


Dutch  School 

The  subject  is  an  old  beggar  man  playing  in  front  oiFrans  Hals 
the  door  of  a  cottage  on  a  ridiculous  instrument  con- 
sisting of  an  earthen  pot  covered  over  like  a  jampot 
with  a  lid  of  parchment,  on  which  he  makes  a  rude 
noise  with  a  stick,  to  the  intense  delight  of  a  group  of 
children.  A  picture  like  this,  then,  it  is  evident,  in- 
stead of  hanging  in  solitary  confinement  in  the  house 
of  a  great  person,  was  so  widely  popular  that  it  was 
copied  on  all  sides,  and  must  have  been  seen  by 
thousands  of  people. 

Next  to  Hals,  in  point  of  time,  was  Hendrik 
Gerritz  Pot,  who  was  born,  probably  at  Haarlem,  in 
1585.  It  is  to  him  rather  than  to  Ostade,  who  was  a 
quarter  of  a  century  later,  that  we  must  trace  the  origin 
of  smaller  genre  pictures  of  the  Dutch  School  which  in 
later  years  became  its  principal  product.  Pot's  works 
are  neither  very  important  nor  very  numerous,  but  as  a 
portrait  painter  he  is  represented  in  the  Louvre  by  a 
portrait  of  Charles  I.,  which  was  probably  painted 
when  he  was  in  England  in  1631  or  thereabouts ;  while 
at  Hampton  Court  is  a  beautiful  little  piece  by  him 
which  is  catalogued  under  the  title  of  A  Startling  In- 
troduction. This  belonged  to  Charles  I.,  for  his  cypher 
is  branded  on  the  back  of  the  panel  on  which  it  is 
painted,  and  it  was  sold  by  the  Commonwealth  as  "a 
souldier  making  a  strange  posture  to  a  Dutch  lady  by 
Bott."  The  painter's  monogram  H.P.  appears  on  the 
large  chimney  piece  before  which  the  " soldier"  is 
standing. 

Gerard  Honthorst,  born  at  Utrecht  in  1590,  can 
hardly  be  said  to  belong  to  the  Dutch  School  at  all. 
When  he  was  only  twenty  he  went  to  Rome,  where  his 
devotion  to  painting  effects  of  candle-light  earned  him 
the  sobriquet  of  "  Gherardo  della  Notte."    In  1628  he 

169 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Frans  Hals  was  elected  Dean  of  the  Guild  of  St.  Luke  at  Utrecht, 
but  he  was  in  no  sense  a  national  painter,  and  neither 
took  nor  gave  anything  in  the  way  of  national  influence. 
He  was  in  England  for  a  few  months  in  1628,  to  which 
chance  we  are  indebted  for  the  picture  of  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham  and  his  family  which  is  in  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery,  and  another  group  of  the  Cavendish 
family  which  is  at  Chatsworth.  Pictures  of  the  no- 
bility, or  of  celebrities  like  Harvey,  the  discoverer  of 
the  circulation  of  the  blood,  were  more  in  his  line  than 
those  of  his  republican  patriots,  and  consequently  he 
plays  no  part  in  the  development  of  the  school  we  are 
now  considering. 

Bartholomew  van  der  Helst,  born  in  Amster- 
dam, 1613,  died  there  1670.  He  is  by  far  the  most 
renowned  of  the  Dutch  portrait-painters  of  this  period. 
Although  nothing  is  known  as  regards  the  master 
under  whom  he  studied,  it  is  probable  that  if  Hals  was 
not  actually  his  teacher,  his  works  were  the  models 
whence  Van  der  Heist  formed  himself.  We  see  this  in 
the  portrait  of  Vice-Admiral  Kortenaar  at  Amsterdam, 
where  the  conception  of  forms,  and  the  unscumbled 
character  of  the  strokes  of  the  brush,  recall  Hals.  The 
same  may  be  observed  in  two  larger  pictures  with 
archers  in  the  Town  Hall  at  Haarlem,  where  the  in- 
artistic arrangement  and  monotony  of  the  otherwise 
warm  flesh  tones  point  to  the  earlier  time  of  the  painter. 
By  about  the  year  1640  his  character  was  more  fully 
developed.  His  arrangement  of  portrait-pieces  with 
numerous  figures  became  very  artistic  and  easy,  his 
tone  excellent,  and  his  drawing  masterly.  This  stand- 
ard of  excellence  he  retained  till  about  1660.  The 
following  are  principal  pictures  of  this  period  : — A 
scene  from  the  Archery  Guild  of  Amsterdam  in  1639, 

170 


Dutch  School 

including  thirty  figures.  The  celebrated  picture  in-  Frans  Hats 
scribed  1648,  an  Archery  Festival  commemorating  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia,  and  consisting  of  a  party  of 
twenty-four  persons,  at  Amsterdam.  The  chief  charm 
of  this  work  consists  in  the  strong  and  truthful  indi- 
viduality of  every  part,  both  in  form  and  colour ;  in 
the  capital  drawing,  which  is  especially  conspicuous  in 
the  hands ;  in  the  powerful  and  clear  colouring ;  and 
finally,  in  a  kind  of  execution  which  observes  a  happy 
medium  between  decision  and  softness.  In  1657  he 
executed  the  picture  of  the  Archery  Guild  known  by 
the  name  "het  Doelenstiick  "  at  Amsterdam  Gallery. 
This  work  represents  three  of  the  overseers  of  the 
Guild,  with  golden  prize  vases,  and  a  fourth  supposed 
to  be  the  painter  himself.  It  is  almost  surpassed  by 
a  replica  on  a  smaller  scale  executed  in  the  following 
year,  which  is  now  in  the  Louvre.  At  all  events,  this 
picture  is  in  better  preservation,  and  offers  one  of  the 
most  typical  examples  of  portrait-painting  that  the 
Dutch  School  produced. 


II 

REMBRANDT  VAN  RYN 

But  the  greatest  of  all  the  Dutch  painters,  in  some 
ways  the  greatest  painter  that  has  ever  lived,  was 
Rembrandt  van  Ryn  (1606- 1669).  Beside  him  all 
the  rest  seem  merely  commonplace,  and  their  works 
the  product  of  this  or  that  demand,  according  to  their 
different  times  and  circumstances,  executed  with  more 
or  less  skill.  For  Rembrandt  there  seems  no  place 
among  them  all — he  must  stand  somewhere  alone ; 

171 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Rembrandt  and  there  is  no  standard  by  which  to  judge  his  per- 
van  Ryn      fections  and  imperfections  except  the  man  himself. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  difference  between  Rembrandt 
and  any  other  painter  is  that  he  never  seems  to  have 
tried  to  please  the  public,  but  only  painted  to  please 
himself.  It  is  for  this  reason,  no  doubt,  that  he  was 
never  popular  with  the  public,  and  is  never  likely  to 
be ;  but  just  as  Beethoven  is  only  understandable  by 
the  really  musical  soul,  so  Rembrandt's  appeal  is  to 
those  who  have  the  feeling  for  something  in  painting 
beyond  the  mere  representation  of  familiar  or  heroic 
scenes  and  persons  on  canvas.  For  the  public  it  is 
enough  that  one  of  his  landscapes  should  be  sold  for 
^£  100,000,  and  they  all  flock  to  see  it ;  but  put  a  fine 
Rembrandt  portrait  in  a  shop-window  without  a  name 
to  it,  and  there  would  be  little  fear  of  the  pavement 
being  blocked. 

This  failure  of  Rembrandt  to  please  the  public  of 
his  own  day  brings  out  the  truth  that  the  practice  of 
painting  had  up  to  then  subsisted  only  so  long  as  it 
supplied  a  popular  demand ;  and  when  we  come  to  con- 
sider what  that  demand  was,  we  find  that  it  is  for 
nothing  else  but  a  pleasing  representation  of  natural 
objects,  which  may  or  may  not  embody  some  senti- 
mental or  historical  association,  but  must  first  and 
foremost  be  a  fair  representation  of  more  or  less 
familiar  things. 

The  oldest  story  about  pictures  is  that  of  Zeuxis  and 
the  bunch  of  grapes,  which  relates  that  he  painted  the 
fruit  so  like  nature  that  the  birds  came  and  pecked  at 
the  painting — some  versions,  I  believe,  adding  that  the 
fruit  itself  was  there  but  they  preferred  the  painting. 
Similar  stories  with  innumerable  variations  are  told  of 
later  artists.    Rembrandt  himself  is  said  to  have  been 

172 


Dutch  School 

deceived  by  his  pupils  who,  knowing  he  was  careful  Rembrandt 
about  collecting  money  in  small  quantities,  however  van  Ryn 
extravagant  he  might  be  in  spending  it,  painted  coins 
on  the  floor  of  the  studio,  and  enjoyed  the  joke  of  seeing 
him  stoop  to  pick  them  up.  We  have  heard,  too,  of 
flies  painted  with  surprising  skill  in  conspicuous  places 
to  deceive  the  unwary.  But  apart  from  these  little 
pleasantries,  one  has  only  to  remember  how  the  earlier 
writers  on  painting  have  expressed  themselves  to  see 
how  much  importance,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
was  attached  to  lifelike  resemblance  to  the  object 
painted.  Vasari  is  constantly  using  phrases  in  which 
he  extols  the  painter  for  having  made  a  figure  look  like 
the  life,  as  though  that  were  the  real  thing  to  be  aimed 
at.  We  remember  Ben  Jonson's  lines  under  Shake- 
speare's portrait — 

"  Wherein  the  graver  had  a  strife 
With  nature  to  outdo  the  life." 

And  though  Ben  Jonson  was  not  a  critic,  and  if  he  had 
been  there  was  little  enough  art  in  his  time  in  England 
for  him  to  criticize,  still  he  expresses  the  general  feel- 
ing of  the  public  for  any  work  of  art. 

With  the  Dutch  people  this  was  most  certainly  the 
case,  and  the  popularity  of  the  painters  of  scenes  of 
everyday  life  is  a  proof  of  it.  That  Hals,  Brouwer, 
or  Ostade  were  great  painters  was  not  half  so  import- 
ant to  them,  if  indeed  they  thought  of  it  all,  as  that 
they  were  capable  of  turning  out  pictures  which  re- 
flected their  everyday  life  like  a  mirror. 

So  long  as  Rembrandt  painted  portraits  like  those 
of  the  Pellicornes  and  their  offspring— the  two  pictures 
at  Hertford  House — or  a  plain  straightforward  group 
like  Dr  Tulp's  Anatomy  Lesson  (though  in  this  he 
was  already  getting  away  from  convention),  he  was 

173 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Rembrandt  tolerated.  And  it  was  not  so  much  his  freedom  in 
van  Ryn  living  and  his  extravagant  notions  of  the  pleasures  of 
life  that  brought  about  his  downfall,  as  his  failure  to 
realize  that  when  he  took  the  money  subscribed  for 
the  group  of  Captain  Banning  Cocq's  Company,  the 
subscribers  expected  something  else  for  their  money 
than  a  picture  {The  Night  IVatcH)  which  might  be  a 
masterpiece  according  to  the  painter's  notions,  but  was 
certainly  not  a  portrait  group  of  the  subscribers. 

Here,  then,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
painting,  we  find  an  artist  definitely  at  issue  with  the 
public.  I  do  not  say  that  this  was  the  first  time  that 
an  artist  had  failed  to  please  the  public,  but  it  is  the 
first  occasion  on  which  it  was  decided  that  if  a  painter 
was  to  undertake  commissions,  he  must  consider  the 
wishes  of  the  patron,  or  starve.  It  was  something  new 
for  a  painter  of  Rembrandt's  repute  to  be  told  that  not 
he,  but  the  persons  who  commissioned  the  work,  were 
to  be  the  judges  of  whether  or  not  it  was  satisfactory. 
The  consequences  were  important.  For  Rem- 
brandt, instead  of  taking  the  matter  as  a  man  of  busi- 
ness, devoted  the  rest  of  his  life  to  being  an  artist,  and 
leaving  the  business  of  painting  to  men  like  Backer, 
Heist,  and  others,  betook  himself  seriously  to  develop- 
ing his  art  irrespective  of  what  the  public  might  or 
might  not  think  of  it.  As  a  result,  we  have  in  the 
later  work  of  Rembrandt  something  that  the  world — 
I  mean  the  artistic  part  of  it — would  be  very  sorry  to 
do  without.  Now  the  meaning  of  this  is,  not  that 
Rembrandt  was  ill-advised  in  deserting  his  patrons, 
or  in  suffering  them  to  desert  him,  but  that  for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  painting  an  artist  had 
the  personality — I  will  not  say  the  conscious  deter- 
mination— to  realize  that  his  art  was  something  quite 

174 


Dutch  School 

apart  from  the  affairs  of  this  world,  and  that  what  Rembrandt 
he  could  express  on  canvas  was  not  merely  a  re-  van  Ryn 
presentation  of  natural  objects  designed  to  please  his 
contemporaries,  but  something  more  than  human, 
something  that  would  appeal  to  humanity  for  all  time. 
That  many  before  him  had  felt  that  of  their  art,  to  a 
lesser  or  greater  degree,  is  unquestionable — but  none 
of  them  had  ever  realised  it.  Diirer,  certainly,  may  be 
cited  as  an  exception,  especially  when  contrasted  with 
his  phlegmatic  and  business-like  compatriot  Holbein. 
But  then  Diirer,  a  century  before,  and  in  totally  differ- 
ent circumstances,  was  never  assured  of  regular  patron- 
age as  was  Rembrandt. 

Rembrandt  was  the  son  of  a  miller  named  Har- 
mann  Geritz,  who  called  himself  Van  Ryn,  from  the 
hamlet  on  the  arm  of  the  Rhine  which  runs  through 
Leyden.  His  mother  was  the  daughter  of  a  baker. 
He  was  entered  as  a  student  at  the  University  of  Ley- 
den, his  parents  being  comfortably  off;  but  he  showed 
so  little  taste  for  the  study  of  the  law,  for  which  they 
intended  him,  that  he  was  allowed  to  follow  his  own 
bent  of  painting,  in  the  studio  of  a  now  forgotten 
painter,  Jacob  van  Swanenburg.  Here  he  studied  for 
about  three  years,  after  which  he  went  to  Amsterdam 
and  was  for  a  short  time  with  another  painter  named 
Lastman,  who  was  a  clever  but  superficial  imitator  of 
the  Italian  School  then  flourishing  in  Rome. 

Returning  to  Leyden,  Rembrandt  set  up  his  easel 
and  remained  there  painting  till  1631,  when  he  went  to 
Amsterdam.  His  works  during  this  first  period  are 
not  very  well  known  in  this  country,  but  at  Windsor 
and  at  Edinburgh  are  portraits  of  his  mother,  which 
must  belong  to  it. 

The  next  decade  was  the  happiest  and  most  pros- 

175 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Rembrandt  perous  in  Rembrandt's  career.  At  Amsterdam  he  soon 
van  Ryn  found  favour  with  wealthy  patrons,  and  his  happiness 
and  success  were  completed  by  his  marrying  Saskia 
van  Ulenburgh,  the  sister  of  a  wealthy  connoisseur  and 
art  dealer,  with  whom  Rembrandt  had  formed  an 
intimate  friendship.  To  this  period  belong  the 
numerous  portraits  of  himself  and  Saskia,  alone  or 
together,  most  of  which  are  characterized  by  a  barbaric 
splendour  of  costume,  utterly  different  from  the  pro- 
fusion of  Rubens,  but  far  more  intense.  Living  among 
the  wealthiest  Jews  in  Amsterdam,  he  seems  to  have 
been  strongly  attracted  by  their  orientalism,  and  while 
Rubens  gloried  in  natural  abundance  of  every  sort,  and 
painted  the  bounty  of  nature  in  the  full  sunlight,  Rem- 
brandt chose  out  the  treasures  of  art,  and  painted 
costume  and  jewels  gleaming  out  of  the  darkness. 
The  portraits  of  himself  in  a  cap  at  Hertford  House 
(No.  52),  and  of  the  Old  Lady  in  the  National  Gallery 
(No.  775),  both  painted  in  1634,  are  notable  examples 
of  this  period,  though  they  have  none  of  the  orientalism 
to  be  seen  in  the  various  portraits  of  Saskia,  or  in  The 
Turk  at  Munich.  The  two  double  portraits  at  Hert- 
ford House  of  Jean  Pellicorne  and  his  wife  with  their 
son  and  daughter  respectively,  were  among  the  com- 
missions which  he  received  after  he  set  up  at  Amster- 
dam, and  are  therefore  less  interesting  as  self-revela- 
tions. Prosperity  is  not  always  the  best  condition 
under  which  to  produce  the  highest  work,  and  the 
temperament  of  Rembrandt  was  so  peculiar  that  there 
is  little  wonder  that  the  prim  Dutchmen  were  not  en- 
tirely captivated  by  his  exuberant  sensuality,  or  that  we 
ourselves  reserve  our  admiration  principally  for  the 
more  sombre  and  mysterious  products  of  his  later 
years  after  misfortune  began  to  fall  upon  him. 

176 


PLATE  XXVI.— REMBRANDT 
PORTRAIT  OF   HENDRICKJE  STOFFELS 

Louvre,  Paris 


Dutch  School 

In  1642  the  beloved  Saskia  died,  leaving  an  only  Rembrandt 
child,  Titus,  whose  features  are  familiar  to  us  in  the  van  Ryn 
portrait  at  Hertford  House.  As  though  this  were  not 
affliction  enough,  Rembrandt  had  the  mortification  of 
offending  his  patrons  over  the  commission  to  paint 
Captain  Banning  Cocq's  Company.  From  this  time 
onward,  as  the  world  and  Rembrandt  drifted  farther 
and  farther  apart,  his  work  becomes  more  and  more 
wonderful. 

Dr  Muther,  in  his  History  of  Painting,  observes 
that  perhaps  it  is  only  possible  to  understand  Rem- 
brandt by  interpreting  his  pictures  not  as  paintings  but 
as  psychological  documents.  "A  picture  by  Rem- 
brandt in  the  Dresden  Gallery,"  he  says,  "  represents 
Samson  Putting  Riddles  to  the  Philistines  ;  and  Rem- 
brandt's entire  activity,  a  riddle  to  the  philistines  of  his 
time,  has  remained  puzzling  to  the  present  day.  ...  As 
no  other  man  bore  his  name,  so  the  artist,  too,  is  some- 
thing unique,  mocks  every  historical  analysis,  and  re- 
mains what  he  was,  a  puzzling,  intangible,  Hamlet 
nature — Rembrandt."  The  author's  theory  of  the 
psychological  document  is  hardly  a  solution  of  the 
admitted  puzzle,  though  it  is  interesting  to  follow  him 
in  tracing  it  out  in  Rembrandt's  religious  pictures,  from 
the  Samson  already  mentioned  to  his  last  dated  work, 
in  1668,  the  Darmstadt  Crucifixion.  What  dis- 
tinguishes Rembrandt  from  all  painters  up  to,  and 
considerably  later  than  his  time,  and  in  particular  from 
those  of  his  own  school,  is  the  mental,  as  compared 
with  the  physical  activity  that  his  pictures  represent. 
Perhaps  this  is  only  another  way  of  stating  Dr 
Muther's  theory  of  the  psychological  documents,  but 
it  enables  us  to  test  that  theory  by  comparing  his  work 
with  that  of  others.     In  technical  skill  Beruete  claims 

M  I77 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Rembrandt  a  far  higher  place  for  Velasquez,  going  so  far  as  to  say 
van  Ryn  that  the  Lesson  in  Anatomy  is  not  a  lesson  in  painting. 
But  the  difference  between  the  two  is  not  as  great  as 
that  in  technique,  though  infinitely  wider  in  the  men- 
tal process  which  led  to  the  production  of  a  picture. 
A  reproduction  of  the  Portrait  of  an  Old  Pole,  at 
S.  Petersburg,  is  in  front  of  me,  as  it  happens,  as  I  am 
writing ;  and  I  see  in  this  no  inferiority  in  firmness 
and  precision,  in  truth  and  vigour,  to  any  portrait  by 
Velasquez. 

In  their  technical  ability  to  present  the  lifelike  por- 
trait of  a  real  man,  we  can  place  Rembrandt,  Velasquez, 
Hals,  and  Van  Dyck  on  pretty  much  of  a  level ;  if 
we  had  Van  der  Geest,  Montanes,  the  Old  Pole  and 
the  Laughing  Cavalier  all  in  a  row,  we  should  find 
there  was  not  much  to  choose  between  them  for  down- 
right realization.  But  while  in  the  work  of  Velasquez 
we  see  the  working  of  a  fine  and  sensitive  appreciation 
of  his  friend's  personality,  and  the  most  exquisite  real- 
ization of  what  was  before  him,  in  that  of  Rembrandt 
we  seem  to  see  less  of  the  Pole  and  more  of  Rembrandt 
himself.  It  is  as  though  he  were  singing  softly  to  him- 
self while  he  was  painting,  thinking  his  own  thoughts  : 
while  Velasquez  was  simply  concerned  with  the  appear- 
ance and  the  thoughts  of  his  model. 

That  Rembrandt's  pictures  are  self-revelations,  or 
psychological  documents,  is  certainly  true;  and  a  proof 
of  it  is  in  the  extraordinary  number  of  portraits  of  him- 
self. The  famous  Dresden  picture  of  himself  with 
Saskia  on  his  knee  can  only  be  regarded  in  that  light, 
and  that  brings  into  the  category  all  the  numerous 
pictures  of  Saskia  and  of  Hendrike  Stoffels,  who  formed 
so  great  a  part  of  his  life.  If  to  these  we  add,  with 
Dr  Muther,  his  Biblical  subjects,  we  find  that  there  is 

178 


Dutch  School 

not  so  very  much  left,  and  when  we  turn  to  the  life's  Rembrandt 
work  of  Rubens,  Titian,  Velasquez,  or  in  fact  any  of  van  Ryn 
the  great  painters,  the  difference  is  at  once  apparent. 
So  that  in  the  pictures  of  Rembrandt  we  may  expect  to 
find  less  of  what  we  look  for  in  those  of  others  in  the  way 
of  display,  but  infinitely  more  of  the  qualities  which, 
to  whatever  extent  they  exist  in  other  artists,  are  bound 
to  be  sacrificed  to  display.  When  we  are  asked  to  a 
feast,  we  find  the  room  brilliantly  lit,  and  our  host  the 
centre  of  an  assemblage  for  whom  he  has  felt  it  his  duty 
to  make  a  display  consistent  with  his  means  and  his 
station.  If  we  were  to  peep  into  his  house  one  night 
we  might  find  him  in  a  room  illumined  only  with  his 
reading-lamp,  absorbed  in  his  favourite  study  ;  but  in- 
stead of  only  exchanging  a  few  conventional  phrases 
with  him,  and  passing  on  to  mingle  with  his  guests  and 
to  enjoy  his  hospitality,  we  might  sit  and  talk  with  him 
into  the  small  hours.  That  is  the  difference  between 
the  success  of  Hals  with  his  Feast  of  S.  George,  and 
the  failure  of  Rembrandt  with  The  Night  Watch. 
Hals  was  at  the  feast,  and  of  it.  Rembrandt  was 
wrapped  up  in  himself,  and  didn't  enter  into  the  spirit 
of  the  company — he  was  carried  away  by  his  own. 
That  is  why  his  pictures  are  so  dark — not  of  deliberate 
technical  purpose,  like  those  of  the  Tenebrosi,  but  be- 
cause to  him  a  subject  was  felt  within  him  rather  than 
seen  as  a  picture  on  so  many  square  feet  of  canvas. 
When  we  call  up  in  our  own  minds  the  recollection  of 
some  event  of  more  than  usually  deep  significance  in 
our  past,  we  only  see  the  deathbed,  the  two  combatants, 
the  face  of  the  beloved,  or  whatever  it  may  be ;  the 
accecsories  are  nothing,  unless  our  imagination  is 
stronger  than  the  sentiment  evoked,  and  sets  to  work 
to  supply  them.     It  is  this  characteristic  which  so 

179 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Rembrandt  sharply  distinguishes  the  work  of  Rembrandt  from 
van  Ryn  that  of  his  closest  imitators.  There  is  a  large  picture 
in  the  National  Gallery,  Christ  Blessing  the  Children, 
catalogued  as  "  School  of  Rembrandt,"  in  which  we  see 
as  near  an  approach  to  his  manner  as  to  justify  the 
attribution,  but  that  is  all.  I  do  not  know  why  it  has 
never  been  suggested  that  this  is  the  work  of  Nicolas 
Maes,  who  was  actuallyhis  pupil,  and  who  was  one  of 
the  few  Dutch  artists  to  paint  life-sized  groups,  as  he 
is  known  to  have  done  in  his  earlier  days  when  still 
under  the  influence  of  Rembrandt.  The  Card  Players y 
close  beside  it,  has  marked  affinities  in  style,  and  especi- 
ally in  the  very  natural  characterization  of  the  faces, 
which  is  also  apparent  in  that  of  the  child  in  the  other 
picture,  and  another  on  the  extreme  left  of  the  picture. 
That  it  cannot  be  Rembrandt's  is  quite  evident ;  the 
grouping  and  the  lighting  of  it  proclaim  the  picture 
seen  on  the  canvas,  and  not  felt  within  the  artist's  own 
consciousness. 

The  realistic  tendency  which,  as  has  already  been 
pointed  out,  was  so  characteristic  of  the  whole  art  of  the 
Netherlands,  showed  the  most  remarkable  and  original 
results  in  the  work  of  an  idealist  like  Rembrandt. 
Sandrart,  one  of  the  earliest  writers  on  painting,  says 
that  Rembrandt  "usually  painted  things  of  a  simple  and 
not  thoughtful  character,  but  which  were  pleasing  to  the 
eyes,  and  picturesque  " — schilderachtig,  as  the  Nether- 
landers  called  it.  This  combination  of  realism  and 
picturesqueness,  assisted  by  his  marvellous  technical 
power,  put  him  far  above  and  apart  from  all  his  com- 
peers. In  the  absence  of  any  pictures  by  his  masters  Van 
Swanenburg  and  Pinas,  it  is  difficult  to  ascertain  what, 
if  anything,  he  learnt  from  them.  From  Peter  Lastman 
we  may  be  sure  he  learnt  nothing  in  the  way  of  tech- 

180 


Dutch  School 

nique.  Kugler — who  in  these  paragraphs  is  my  princi-  Rembrandt 
pal  authority — suggests  that  it  is  highly  probable  that  van  Ryn 
in  this  respect  he  formed  himself  from  the  pictures  of 
Frans  Hals,  with  which  he  must  have  been  early  ac- 
quainted in  the  neighbouring  town  of  Haarlem.  At  all 
events  unexampled  freedom,  spirit,  and  breadth  of  his 
manner  is  comparable  with  that  of  no  other  earlier  Dutch 
master.  But  all  these  admirable  qualities  would  offer 
no  sufficient  compensation  for  the  ugly  and  often  vulgar 
character  of  his  heads  and  figures,  and  for  the  total  sub- 
version of  all  the  traditional  rules  of  art  in  costume  and 
accessory,  and  would  fail  to  account  for  the  great  admira- 
tion which  his  works  enjoy,  if  he  had  not  been  possessed, 
besides,  of  an  intensely  artistic  individuality. 

In  his  earliest  pictures  his  touch  is  already  masterly 
and  free,  but  still  careful,  while  the  colour  of  the  flesh  is 
warm  and  clear  and  the  light  full.  Dr  Tulfis  Anatomy, 
painted  in  1632,  is  the  most  famous  of  this  period.  In 
The  Night  Watch,  at  Amsterdam,  dated  1642,  the  light 
is  already  restricted,  falling  only  on  isolated  objects ;  the 
local  tone  of  the  flesh  is  more  golden ;  the  touch  more 
spirited  and  distinct.  Later,  that  is  to  say  from  about 
1654  onwards,  the  golden  flesh  tones  become  still  more 
intense,  passing  sometimes  into  a  brown  of  less  trans- 
parency, and  accompanied  frequently  with  grey  and 
blackish  shadows  and  sometimes  with  rather  cool  lights. 
The  chief  picture  of  this  epoch,  dated  1661,  is  The 
Syndics,  also  at  Amsterdam,  a  group  of  six  men.  This, 
in  the  depth  of  the  still  transparent  golden  tone,  in  the 
animation  of  the  heads,  and  in  bodyand  breadth  of  hand- 
ling, is  a  true  masterpiece. 

With  respect  to  his  treatment  of  Biblical  subjects, 
two  older  writers,  Kolloff  and  Guhl,  accord  him  an 
honour  which,  as  we  shall  see,  Kugler  gives  to  Durer  a 

181 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Rembrandt  century  earlier,  namely  that  of  being  the  painter  of  the 
van  Ryn  true  spirit  of  the  Reformed  Church.  Though  it  is  certain, 
Kugler  admits,  that  no  other  school  of  painting  in 
Rembrandt's  time — neither  that  of  Rubens,  nor  that  of 
the  Carracci,  nor  the  French  nor  Spanish  schools — 
rendered  the  spiritual  import  of  Biblical  subjects  with 
the  purity  and  depth  exhibited  by  the  great  Dutch 
master.  Here  the  kindly  element  of  deep  sentiment  com- 
bines most  happily  with  his  feeling  for  composition,  as 
in  the  Descent  from  the  Cross,  at  Munich,  in  The  Holy 
Family,  in  the  Louvre,  and  above  all  in  The  Woman 
taken  in  Adultery,  in  the  National  Gallery.  In  this  last, 
a  touching  truthfulness  and  depth  of  feeling,  with  every 
other  grand  quality  peculiar  to  Rembrandt,  are  seen  in 
their  highest  perfection.  Of  hardly  less  excellence,  also, 
is  our  Descent  from  the  Cross. 

Endowed  with  so  many  admirable  qualities,  it 
follows  that  Rembrandt  was  a  portrait  painter  of  the 
highest  order,  while  his  peculiar  style  of  lighting,  his 
colouring  and  treatment,  distinguish  his  portraits  from 
those  by  all  other  masters.  Even  the  works  of  his  most 
successful  pupils,  who  followed  his  style  in  this  respect, 
are  far  behind  him  in  energy  of  conception  and  execu- 
tion. The  number  of  his  admirable  portraits  is  so  large 
that  it  is  difficult  to  know  which  to  mention  as  most 
characteristic.  No  other  artist  ever  painted  his  own 
portrait  so  frequently,  and  some  of  these  may  first  be 
mentioned.  That  in  the  Louvre,  dated  1633,  represents 
him  in  youthful  years,  fresh  and  full  of  hope.  It  is 
spiritedly  painted  in  the  bright  tone  of  his  earlier  period. 
Another  in  the  same  gallery,  of  the  year  1660,  painted 
with  extraordinary  breadth  and  certainty  of  hand  of  that 
later  period,  shows  a  man  weighed  down  with  the  cares 
of  life,  with  grey  hair  and  deeply  furrowed  forehead. 

182 


PLATE  XXVII.— REMBRANDT 

PORTRAIT  OF  AN  OLD   LADY 

National  Gallery,  London 


Dutch  School 

The  one  at  Hertford  House,  already  mentioned,  and  Rembrandt 
two  in  the  National  Gallery,  fall  between  theseextremes.  van  Ryn 
Of  other  portraits  we  have  already  mentioned  the  two 
Pellicorne  groups  in  the  Wallace  Collection;  and  an- 
other of  this  earliestperiod,  the  very  popular  OldWoman, 
in  the  National  Gallery,  dated  1634.  This  is  of  greater 
interest  as  showing,  if  anything  does,  whether  it  is  fair 
to  attribute  any  of  his  training  to  the  influence  of  Hals. 
At  any  rate  this  picture  is  a  highly  important  proof  that 
at  the  early  age  of  twenty-six,  the  painter  was  already  in 
the  full  possession  of  that  energy  and  animation  of  con- 
ception, and  of  that  decision  of  the  "broad  and  marrowy 
touch"  which  are  so  characteristic  of  him.  Of  his  later 
period — probably  about  1657 — a  fine  example  is  The 
Jewish  Rabbi,  and  of  his  latest  the  Old  Man,  both  in  the 
National  Gallery. 

Ill 
PAINTERS  OF  GENRE 

The  painters  of  genre,  by  the  number,  quality,  and 
diversity  of  whose  pictures  the  Dutch  School  is  specially 
distinguished,  may  be  roughly  divided  into  three 
classes ;  namely,  those  who  studied  the  upper,  the 
middle,  and  the  lower  classes  respectively.  But  as 
Holland  was  a  republic,  and  the  great  stream  of  its  art 
welled  up  from  the  earth  and  was  not  showered  upon 
it  from  above,  it  will  be  found  convenient  to  reverse 
the  social  order  in  considering  them,  and  begin  with 
the  immediate  successors  of  Frans  Hals,  whose  in- 
fluence was  without  doubt  a  very  considerable  factor 
in  the  development  of  Adrian  Brouwer  and  Adrian 
and  Isaac  Ostade. 

Adrian  Brouwer,  now  generally  classed  under 

183 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  oftht  Flemish  School,  was  born  at  Oudenarde  in  1606. 

genre  But  he  went  early  to  Haarlem,  and  it  was  not  until 

about  1630  that  he  settled  at  Antwerp,  where  he  died  in 
1 64 1.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Frans  Hals,  and  acquired 
from  him  not  only  his  spirited  and  free  touch,  but  also 
a  similar  mode  of  life.  His  pictures,  which  for  the  most 
part  represent  the  lower  orders  eating  and  drinking, 
often  in  furious  strife,  are  extraordinary  true  and  life- 
like in  character,  and  display  a  singularly  delicate  and 
harmonious  colouring,  which  inclines  to  the  cool  scale, 
an  admirable  individuality,  and  a  sfumato  of  surface 
in  which  he  is  unrivalled ;  so  that  we  can  well  under- 
stand the  high  esteem  in  which  Rubens  held  them. 
Owing  to  his  mode  of  life,  and  to  its  early  close,  the 
number  of  his  works  is  not  large,  and  they  are  now 
seldom  met  with.  No  gallery  is  so  rich  in  them  as 
Munich,  which  possesses  nine,  six  of  which  are  master- 
pieces. A  Party  of  Peasants  at  a  Game  of  Cards, 
affords  an  example  of  the  brightness  and  clearness  of 
those  cool  tones  in  which  he  evidently  became  the 
model  of  Teniers.  Spanish  Soldiers  Throwing  Dice, 
is  equally  harmonious,  in  a  subdued  brownish  tone. 
A  Surgeon  Removing  the  Plaster  from  the  Arm  of  a 
Peasant  is  not  only  most  masterly  and  animated  in  ex- 
pression, but  is  a  type  of  his  bright,  clear,  and  golden 
tone,  and  is  singularly  free  and  light  in  touch.  Card- 
players  Fighting,  is  in  every  respect  one  of  his  best 
pictures.  The  momentary  action  in  each  figure,  all  of 
them  being  individualized  with  singular  accuracy  even 
as  regards  the  kind  of  complexion,  is  incomparable,  the 
tenderness  of  the  harmony  astonishing,  and  the  execu- 
tion of  extraordinary  delicacy.  The  only  example  in 
the  National  Gallery  is  the  Three  Boors  Drinking,  be- 
queathed by  George  Salting  in  19 10 ;  and  at  Hertford 

184 


Dutch  School 

House  the  Boor  Asleep,  though  of  this  we  may  with-  Painters  of 
out  hesitation  accept  the  description  in  the  catalogue,  genre 
"our  painting  is  of  the  highest  quality,  and  in  the 
audacity  of  its  realism  rises  almost  to  grandeur." 

Adrian  Van  Ostade.  said  to  have  been  born  at 
Lubeck,  was  baptized  in  1610  at  Haarlem,  where  he 
studied  under  Frans  Hals,  and  he  formed  a  very  good 
taste  in  colouring.  Nature  guided  his  brush  in  every- 
thing he  undertook  ;  he  devoted  himself  almost  en- 
tirely to  painting  peasants  and  drunkards,  whose 
gestures  and  most  trifling  actions  were  the  subject  of 
his  most  serious  meditation.  The  subjects  of  his  little 
pictures  are  not  more  elevated  than  those  of  Brouwer, 
and  considerably  less  than  those  of  Teniers — they  are 
nearly  always  alehouses  or  kitchens.  He  is  perhaps 
one  of  the  Dutch  masters  who  best  understood  chiaro- 
scuro. His  figures  are  very  lively,  and  he  sometimes 
put  them  into  the  pictures  of  the  best  painters  among 
his  countrymen.  Nothing  can  excel  his  pictures  of 
stables,  in  which  the  light  is  spread  so  judiciously  that 
all  one  could  wish  is  a  lighter  touch  in  his  drawing,  and 
a  little  more  height  in  his  figures.  Many  of  his  brother 
Isaak's  pictures  are  improperly  attributed  tohim,  which, 
though  painted  in  the  same  manner,  are  never  of  the 
real  excellence  of  Adrian's. 

The  Interior  with  Peasants  at  Hertford  House,  and 
The  Alchymist  at  the  National  Gallery  are  a  charac- 
teristic pair  of  his  pictures,  which  were  sold  in  the  col- 
lection of  M.  de  Jully  in  1769  for  ^"164,  the  former 
being  purchased  by  the  third  Marquess  of  Hertford  and 
the  latter  passing  into  the  Peel  Collection.  Buying 
Fish,  at  Hertford  House,  dated  1669 — when  the  artist 
was  nearly  sixty  years  old,  is  remarkable  for  its  breadth 
of  effect  and  brilliancy  of  colour. 

185 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  of       J  an  Steen,  born  at  Leyden  about  the  year  1626, 
genre  died  1679.     He  first  received  instruction  under  Nicolas 

Knupler ;  and  afterwards  it  is  said  worked  with  Jan 
van  Goyen,  whose  daughter  he  married.  An  extra- 
ordinary genius  for  painting  was  unfortunately  co-ex- 
istent in  Jan  Steen  with  jovial  habits  of  no  moderate 
kind.  The  position  of  tavern-keeper  in  which  he  was 
placed  by  his  family,  gave  both  the  opportunity  of  in- 
dulging his  propensities  and  also  that  of  depicting  the 
pleasures  of  eating  and  drinking,  of  song,  card-playing 
and  love-making  directly  from  nature.  He  must  have 
worked  with  amazing  facility,  for  in  spite  of  the  time 
consumed  in  this  mode  of  life,  to  which  his  compara- 
tively early  death  may  be  attributed,  the  number  of  his 
pictures  is  very  great.  His  favourite  subjects  were 
groups  like  the  Family  Jollification ;  the  Feast  of  the 
Bean  King  ;  and  that  form  of  diversion  illustrating  the 
proverb,  M  So  wie  die  A  It  en  sungen,  sopfeifen  auch  die 
Jungen  "  ;  fairs,  weddings,  etc. ;  he  also  treated  other 
scenes,  suchas  the  Doctor's  Visit,  the  Schoolmasterwith 
a  generally  very  unmanageable  set  of  boys — of  which 
is  a  charming  example  at  Dublin.  The  ludicrous  ways 
of  children  seem  especially  to  have  attracted  him  ;  ac- 
cordingly, he  depicts  with  great  zest  the  old  Dutch 
custom  on  St.  Nicholas's  Day,  September  3rd,  of 
rewarding  the  good,  and  punishing  the  naughty  child  ; 
or  shows  a  mischievous  little  urchin  teasing  the  cat, 
or  stealing  money  from  the  pockets  of  their,  alas ! — 
drunken  progenitors. 

Jan  Steen  is  the  most  genial  painter  of  the  whole 
Dutch  School.  His  humour  has  made  him  so  popular 
with  the  English,  that  at  least  two-thirds  of  his  pictures 
are  in  their  possession. 

A  peculiar  cluster  of  masters,  belonging  to  the  Dutch 

186 


PLATE    XXVIIL— TERBORCH 
THE  CONCERT 

Louvre,  Paris 


Dutch  School 

School,  was  formed  by  Gerard  Dou.     However  careful  Painters  of 
in  execution  were  such  painters  as  Terburg,  Metsu,  and  genre 
Netscher,  yet  Gerard  Dou  and  his  scholars  and  imi- 
tators surpassed  them  in  the  development  of  that  tech- 
nical finish  with  which  they  rendered  the  smallest  detail 
with  meticulous  exactitude. 

Gerard  Dou  was  born  at  Leyden  on  the  7th  April 
1 6 1 3,  died  there  1 680.  He  entered  Rembrandt's  school 
at  fifteen  years  of  age,  and  in  three  years  had  attained 
the  position  of  an  independent  artist.  He  devoted  him- 
self at  first  to  portraiture,  and,  like  his  master,  made  his 
own  face  frequently  his  subject.  Afterwards  he  treated 
scenes  from  the  life  chiefly  of  the  middle  classes.  He 
tookparticularpleasure  in  the  representation  of  hermits ; 
he  also  painted  scriptural  events  and  occasionally  still 
life.  His  lighting  is  frequently  that  of  lanterns  and 
candles.  Most  of  his  pictures  contain  only  from  one  to 
three  figures,  and  do  not  exceed  about  2  ft.  high  and 
1  ft.  3  in.  wide,  being  often  smaller.  His  pictures 
seldom  attain  even  an  animated  moral  import,  and  may 
be  said  to  be  limited  usually  to  a  certain  kindliness  of 
sentiment.  On  the  other  hand,  he  possessed  a  trace  of 
his  master's  feeling  for  the  picturesque,  and  for  chiar- 
oscuro. Notwithstanding  the  incalculable  minuteness 
of  his  execution,  the  touch  of  his  brush  is  free  and  soft, 
and  his  best  pictures  look  like  Nature  seen  through  the 
camera-obscura.  His  works  were  so  highly  estimated 
in  his  own  time,  that  the  President  van  Spiring,  at  the 
Hague,  offered  him  1000  florins  a  year  for  the  right  of 
pre-emption  of  his  pictures.  Considering  the  time  * 
which  such  finish  required,  and  the  early  age  at  which 
he  died,  the  number  of  his  pictures — Smith  enumerates 
about  200 — is  remarkable.  In  the  Louvre  are  the 
following: — An  old  woman  seated  at  a  window,  reading 

187 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  c/'the  Bible  to  her  husband;  this  is  one  of  the  best  among 

genre  the  many  representations  by  Dou  of  a  similar  kind, 

being  of  warm  sunny  effect,  and   marvellous  finish. 

Also  the  Woman  with  the  Dropsy,  which  is  accounted 

his  chef-doziivre. 

Among  the  scholars  of  Gerard  Dou,  Frans  van 
Mieris,  born  at  Leyden  1635,  died  1681,  takes  the 
first  place.  In  chiaroscuro,  and  in  delicacy  of  execu- 
tion he  is  not  inferior  to  his  master.  Although  his 
pictures  are  generally  very  small,  yet  with  their  extra- 
ordinary minuteness  of  execution  it  is  surprising  that, 
in  a  life  extended  only  to  forty-six  years,  he  should 
have  produced  so  many.  The  Munich  Gallery  has 
most,  then  Dresden,  Vienna,  Florence,  and  St.  Peters- 
burg. The  date,  1656,  on  a  picture  in  the  Vienna 
Gallery,  The  Doctor,  shows  the  painter  to  have  attained 
the  summit  of  his  art  at  twenty-one  years  of  age.  An- 
other dated  1660,  in  the  same  gallery,  executed  for  the 
Archduke  Leopold,  is  one  of  his  best.  The  scene  is  a 
shop  with  a  young  woman  showing  a  gentleman,  who 
has  taken  her  by  the  chin,  various  handkerchiefs  and 
stuffs.  In  the  Munich  Gallery  is  A  Soldier, dated  1662, 
of  admirable  transparency  and  softness.  Also  A  Lady 
in  a  yellow  satin  dress  fainting  in  the  presence  of  the 
doctor.  I  n  the  Hague  Gallery  is  A  Boy  Blowing  Soap- 
bubbles,  dated  1663.  This  is  a  charming  little  picture 
of  great  depth  of  the  brownish  tone.  Also  The  Painter 
and  His  IVife,whose  little  shock  dog  he  is  teasing;  very 
naiveand  lively  in  the  heads,  and  mostdelicately  treated 
in  a  subdued  but  clear  tone.  In  the  Dresden  Gallery 
are  Mieris  again  and  his  wife  before  her  portrait.  This 
is  one  of  his  most  successful  pictures  for  chiaroscuro, 
tone,  and  spirited  handling. 

Nicolas  Maes,  already  mentioned,  born  at  Dor- 

188 


PLATE  XXIX.— GABRIEL  METSU 

THE   MUSIC  LESSON 

National  Gallery,  London 


Dutch  School 

drecht  1632,  died  1693,  was  actually  a  pupil  of  Rem-  Painters  of 
brandt.  His  much  prized  and  rare  genre  pictures  treat  genre 
very  simple  subjects,  and  consist  seldom  of  more  than 
two  or  three  figures,  generally  of  women.  The  naivete 
and  homeliness  of  his  feeling,  with  the  addition  some- 
times of  a  trait  of  kindly  humour ;  the  admirable 
lighting,  and  a  touch  resembling  Rembrandt  in  im- 
pasto  and  vigour,  render  his  pictures  very  attractive. 
In  the  National  Gallery,  besides  The  Card  Players,  are 
The  Cradle,  The  Dutch  Mdnage,  dated  1655  ;  and  The 
Idle  Servant :  all  these  are  admirable,  and  the  last- 
named  a  chef-dcettvre. 

Peter  de  Hoogh  (1629- 1677)  decidedly  belongs 
to  the  numerous  artistic  posterity  of  Rembrandt,  pos- 
sibly through  Karel  Fabritius,  and  stands  nearer  to 
Vermeer  and  to  Maes,  than  to  any  other  painter. 
His  biographycan  only  be  gathered  from  the  occasional 
dates  on  his  pictures,  extending  from  1658  to  1670. 
Although  he  impresses  the  eye  by  the  same  effects  as 
Maes,  yet  he  is  also  very  different  from  him.  He  has 
not  his  humour,  and  seldom  his  kindliness,  and  his 
figures,  which  are  either  playing  cards,  smoking  or 
drinking,  or  engaged  in  the  transaction  of  some  house- 
hold duty, — with  faces  that  say  but  little — have  gener- 
ally only  the  interest  of  a  peaceful  or  jovial  existence. 
If  Maes  takes  the  lead  in  warm  lighting,  Peter  de 
Hoogh  may  be  considered  par  excellence  the  painter 
of  full  and  clear  sunlight.  If,  again,  Maes  shows  us 
his  figures  almost  exclusively  in  interiors,  Peter  de 
Hoogh  places  them  most  frequently  in  the  open  air — 
in  courtyards.  In  the  representation  of  the  poetry  of 
light,  and  in  that  marvellous  brilliancy  and  clearness 
with  which  he  calls  it  forth  in  various  distances  till 
the  background  is  reached,  which  is  generally  illumined 

189 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  of  by  a  fresh  beam,  no  other  master  can  compare  with 

genre  him.     His  prevailing  local  colour  is  red,  repeated  with 

greater  delicacy  in  various  planes  of  distance.     This 

colour  fixes  the  rest  of  the  scale.     His  touch  is  of  great 

delicacy  ;  his  impasto  admirable. 

Gerard  Terburg,  born  at  Zwol  1608,  died  1681, 
learned  painting  under  his  father,  and  when  still  young 
visited  Germany  and  Italy,  painting  numerous  por- 
traits on  a  small  scale,  and  occasionally  the  size  of  life. 
But  his  place  in  the  history  of  art  is  owing  principally 
to  a  number  of  pictures,  seldom  representing  more 
than  three,  and  often  only  one  figure,  taken  from  the 
wealthier  classes,  in  which  great  elegance  of  costume, 
and  of  all  accompanying  circumstances,  is  rendered 
with  the  finest  keeping,  and  with  a  highly  delicate  but 
by  no  means  over-smooth  execution.  He  may  be  con- 
sidered as  the  originator  of  this  class  of  pictures,  in 
which,  after  his  example,  several  other  Dutch  painters 
distinguished  themselves.  With  him  the  chief  mass 
of  light  is  generally  formed  by  the  white  satin  dress 
of  a  lady,  which  gives  the  tone  for  the  prevailing  cool 
harmony  of  the  picture.  Among  his  pictures  we 
occasionally  find  some  which,  taken  successively,  re- 
present several  different  moments  of  one  scene.  Thus 
in  the  Dresden  Gallery,  there  are  two  good  pictures : 
the  one  of  an  officer  writing  a  letter,  while  a  trumpter 
waits  for  it ;  the  other  of  a  girl  in  white  satin  washing 
her  hands  in  a  basin  held  before  her  by  a  maid-servant ; 
while  at  Munich,  is  another  fine  work,  in  which  the 
trumpeter  is  offering  the  young  lady  the  letter,  who 
owing  to  the  presence  of  the  maid,  who  evidently  dis- 
approves, is  uncertain  whether  to  take  the  missive. 
Finally,  in  the  Amsterdam  Gallery,  the  celebrated 
picture  known  by  the  title  of  Conseil paternel,  furnishes 

190 


PLATE  XXX.— PIETER  DE  HOOCH 

INTERIOR  OF  A  DUTCH   HOUSE 

National  Gallery,  London 


Dutch  School 

the  closing  scene.  The  maid  has  betrayed  the  affair  Painters  of 
to  the  father,  and  he  is  delivering  a  lecture  to  the  young  genre 
lady,  in  whom  by  turning  her  back  on  the  spectator, 
the  painter  has  happily  expressed  the  feeling  of  shame ; 
good  repetitions  are  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  and  in  the 
Bridgewater  Gallery.  But  Terburg's  perfection  as 
regards  the  clearness  and  harmony  of  his  silvery  tone 
is  shown  in  a  picture  at  Cassel,  representing  a  young 
lady  in  white  satin  sitting  playing  the  lute  at  a  table. 
Jan  Vermeer  of  Delft  (1632- 1675)  was  certainly 
a  pupil  of  Fabritius,  and  thus  "grandson"  of  Rem- 
brandt. To  class  him  with  painters  of  genre  seems 
almost  a  profanation  of  the  exquisite  sense  of  beauty 
with  which,  almost  alone  among  the  Dutch  painters, 
he  seems  to  have  been  endowed.  It  is  like  classing 
Walter  Pater  with  art  critics.  But  as  Vermeer  had  to 
express  himself  in  some  form,  it  is  perhaps  fortunate 
that  the  school  had  developed  this  kind  of  poetic  por- 
traiture, under  Terburg,  Metsu  and  others,  to  a  point 
where  a  genius  like  Vermeer  could  use  it  as  the  vehicle 
of  his  fascinating  self-revelations.  In  landscape  we 
have  the  View  of  Delft,  at  the  Hague,  which  has  shown 
the  nineteenth  century  painters  more  than  they  could 
ever  see  in  their  more  famous  predecessors  ;  but  it  is 
in  the  simple  compositions  like  The  Letter  Reader  at 
Amsterdam,  The  Proposal,  at  Dresden,  or  the  Lady 
at  the  Virginals,  in  the  National  Gallery,  that  he  dis- 
plays his  greatest  power  and  charm. 

IV 
PAINTERS  OF  ANIMALS 

As  a  link  between  the  painters  of  genre  and  the  land- 
scapists,  we  may  here  mention  some  of  the  numerous 

191 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  o/artists  who  either  made  landscape  the  background 
animals  for  groups  of  figures  and  animals,  or  peopled  their 
landscapes  with  groups — it  matters  not  which  way  we 
put  it.  Among  these  we  shall  find  several  of  the  most 
famous,  or  at  any  rate  the  most  popular  artists  of  the 
Dutch  School. 

Philips  Wouverman  (i  6 19- 1668),  whose  reputa- 
tion during  the  last  century  was  greater  than  that  of 
almost  any  of  the  Dutch  painters  except  Rembrandt 
and  Dou,  is  said  to  have  studied  under  Hals,  but  it  is 
more  certain  that  the  master  from  whom  he  learnt  most, 
if  not  all,  was  Jan  Wynants  at  Haarlem,  whose  whole 
manner  in  landscape  he  quickly  succeeded  in  acquiring, 
and  surpassed  him  in  his  facility  with  horsemen  and 
other  figures. 

Wouverman's  works  have  all  the  excellences  that 
may  be  expected  from  high  finishing,  correctness, 
agreeable  composition  and  colouring.  It  does  not  ap- 
pear that  he  was  ever  in  Italy,  or  even  quitted  the  city 
of  Haarlem,  though  it  would  seem  probable  that  his 
more  elaborate  compositions  owed  something  to  other 
influences  than  those  of  Hals  or  Wynants.  In  his 
earlier  pictures  there  are  no  horses,  but  later  in  his 
career  he  generally  subordinated  his  landscapes  to  the 
groups  or  subjects  for  which  he  is  most  famous.  In 
the  National  Gallery,  among  eleven  examples,  are  a 
Halt  of  Officers,  Interior  of  a  Stable,  A  Battle,  The 
Bohemians,  and  Shoeing  a  Horse,  all  of  which  contain 
numerous  figures,  mounted  and  unmounted — and 
there  is  nearly  always  a  white  horse. 

With  all  his  success,  he  died  a  poor  man,  and  it  is 
related  that  in  his  last  hours  he  burned  a  box  filled 
with  his  studies  and  drawings,  saying,  "  I  have  been 
so  ill  repaid  for  all  my  labours,  that  I  would  not  have 

192 


PLATE  XXXI.— JAN  VERMEER 

THE   LACE  MAKER 

Louvre,   Paris 


Dutch  School 

those  designs  engage  my  son  to  embrace  so  miser-  Painters  of 
able  a  profession  as  mine."  This  son  followed  his  Animals 
advice,  and  became  a  Chartreux  friar.  Peter  and  Jan 
Wouverman  were  his  brothers.  The  former  painted 
hawking  scenes,  and  his  horses,  though  well  designed, 
were  not  equal  to  those  of  Philips.  The  latter  is  repre- 
sented in  the  National  Gallery  by  a  landscape  in  which 
the  spirit  of  Wynant's,  rather  than  that  of  Philips's,  is 
discernible. 

At  Hertford  House,  out  of  seven  examples,  two  are 
of  more  than  usual  excellence,  and  well  represent  his 
earlier  and  later  manners.  The  Afternoon  Landscape 
with  a  White  Horse  (No.  226  in  Room  XIII),  which 
Smith  (in  his  Catalogue  Raisonne'),  characterizes  as 
possessing  unusual  freedom  of  pencilling,  and  power- 
ful effect,  dates  from  the  transition  from  the  early  to 
the  middle  period,  and  is  a  very  effective  picture,  as 
well  as  being  very  characteristic.  The  Horse  Fair 
(No.  65,  in  Room  XVI),  is  not  only  much  larger  than 
the  other — it  measures  25  x  35  inches — but  is  a  really 
important  picture.  Lord  Hertford  paid  ^3200  for  it 
in  1854.  It  was  engraved  by  Moyrean,  for  his  series 
of  a  hundred  prints  after  Wouverman,  under  the  title 
of  Le  Grand  Marchd  aux  Chevaux.  It  is  thus  de- 
scribed by  Smith  : — "  This  very  capital  picture  exhibits 
an  open  country  divided  in  the  middle  distance  by  a 
river  whose  course  is  lost  amongthe  distant  mountains. 
The  principal  scene  of  activity  is  represented  along  the 
front  and  second  grounds,  on  which  may  be  numbered 
about  twenty-four  horses,  exhibiting  that  noble  animal 
in  every  variety  of  action,  and  nearly  fifty  persons.  On 
the  right  of  the  picture  is  a  coach,  drawn  by  four  fine 
grey  horses,  and  in  front  of  this  object  are  a  grey  and 
a  bay  horse,  on  the  latter  of  which  are  mounted  a  man 

N  IQ3 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  o/and  a  boy.  In  advance  of  them  is  a  group  of  four 
Animals  horses  and  several  persons,  among  whom  may  be 
noticed  a  cavalier  and  a  lady  observing  the  paces  of  a 
horse  which  a  jockey  and  his  master  are  showing  off. 
A  gentleman  on  a  black  horse  seems  also  to  be  watching 
the  action  of  the  animal.  Near  this  person  is  a  mare 
lying  down,  and  a  foal  standing  by  it  which  a  boy  is 
approaching.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  picture  is  a 
gentleman  on  a  cream-coloured  horse,  near  two  spirited 
greys,  one  of  which  is  kicking,  and  a  woman,  a  man 
and  a  boy  are  escaping  from  its  heels.  From  thence 
the  eye  looks  over  an  open  space  occupied  by  men  and 
horses,  receding  in  succession  to  the  bank  of  the  river, 
along  which  are  houses  and  tents  concealed  in  part  by 
trees.  This  picture  is  painted  throughout  with  great 
care  and  delicacy  in  what  is  termed  the  last  manner  of 
the  master,  remarkable  for  the  prevalent  grey  or  silvery 
hues  of  colouring." 

Albert  Cuyp,  born  at  Dortrecht  1620,  died  there 
about  1672.  Of  the  life  of  this  great  painter  little 
more  is  known  with  any  certainty  than  that  he  was  the 
scholar  of  his  father,  Jacob  Gerritsz  Cuyp.  Cattle 
form  a  prominent  feature  in  many  of  his  works,  though 
never  so  highly  finished  as  in  those  of  Paul  Potter  or 
Adrian  van  de  Velde  ;  indeed,  in  many  of  Cuyp's 
pictures,  they  are  quite  subordinate.  His  favourite 
subjects,  a  landscape  with  a  river,  with  cattle  lying  or 
standing  on  its  banks,  and  landscapes  with  horsemen 
in  the  foreground,  were  suggested  to  him  no  doubt  by 
the  country  about  Dortrecht  and  the  river  Maas  :  but 
he  also  painted  winter  landscapes,  and  especially  views 
of  rivers  where  the  broad  extent  of  water  is  animated 
by  vessels.  Sometimes,  too,  with  great  perfection, 
fowls  as  large  as  life,  hens,  ducks,  etc.,  and  still  life. 

194 


Dutch  School 

He  also  painted  portraits,  though  less  successfully.  Painters  of 
However  great  the  skill  displayed  in  the  composition  Animals 
of  his  works,  their  principal  charm  lies  in  the  beauty 
and  truthfulness  of  their  peculiar  lighting.  No  other 
painter,  with  the  exception  of  Claude,  has  so  well 
understood  the  cool  freshness  of  morning,  the  bright 
but  misty  light  of  a  hot  noon,  or  the  warm  glow  of  a 
clear  sunset.  The  effect  of  his  pictures  is  further  en- 
hanced by  the  skill  with  which  he  avails  himself  of 
the  aid  of  contrasts  ;  as  for  example,  dark,  rich  colours 
of  the  reposing  cattle  as  seen  against  the  bright  sky. 
In  his  own  country  no  picture  of  his,  till  the  year 
1750,  ever  sold  for  more  than  thirty  florins.  Indeed, 
Kugler  was  informed  by  a  Dutch  friend,  that  in  past 
times,  when  a  picture  found  no  bidder,  the  auctioneer 
would  offer  to  throw  in  "  a  little  Cuyp  "  in  order  to 
induce  a  sale.  The  merit  of  having  first  given  him 
his  due  rank  belongs  to  the  English,  who  as  early  as 
1785,  gave  at  the  sale  of  Linden  van  Slingelandt's 
collection  at  Dortrecht  high  prices  for  Cuyp's  works ; 
About  nine-tenths  of  his  pictures  are  consequently  to 
be  found  in  England. 

One  of  his  finest  works  is  the  landscape,  in  bright, 
warm,  morning  light,  with  two  cows  reposing  in  the 
foreground,  and  a  woman  conversing  with  a  horseman, 
in  the  National  Gallery  (No.  53).  The  whole  picture 
breathes  a  cheerful  and  rural  tranquillity.  In  his 
mature  time,  these  admirable  qualities  are  seen  in 
higher  development.  In  the  Louvre  (No.  104),  is 
another  fine  example — a  scene  with  six  cows,  a  shep- 
herd blowing  the  horn,  and  two  children  listening  to 
him.  This  is  admirably  arranged,  of  greater  truthful- 
ness as  regards  the  form  and  colouring  of  the  cattle 
than  usual,  and  with  the  warm  lighting  of  the  sky 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  o/executed  with  equal  decision  and  softness.  This  pic- 
Animals  ture  is  one  of  the  master's  chief  productions,  being  also 
about  4  ft.  high  by  6  ft.  wide.  Another  with  three 
horsemen,  and  a  servant  carrying  partridges,  and  in 
the  centre  a  meadow  with  cattle,  is  also  in  the  Louvre. 
This  is  less  attractive  in  subject,  but  ranks  equally 
high  as  a  work  of  art.  In  Buckingham  Palace  are  two 
pictures,  one  with  three  cows  reposing,  and  one  stand- 
ing by  a  clear  stream,  near  them  a  herdsman  and  a 
woman  ;  other  cows  are  in  water  near  the  ruins  of  a 
castle.  In  this  picture,  we  see  Cuyp  in  every  respect 
at  his  culminating  point  of  excellence.  Not  less  fine, 
and  of  singular  force  of  colour,  is  the  landscape,  with 
a  broad  river  running  through  it,  and  a  horseman 
under  a  tree  in  conversation  with  a  countryman. 

Paul  Potter,  born  at  Enckhuysen  1625,  died  at 
Amsterdam  1654.  Although  the  scholar  of  his  father, 
Pieter  Potter,  who  was  but  a  mediocre  painter,  he  made 
such  astonishing  progress  as  to  rank  at  the  age  of  15 
as  a  finished  artist.  He  removed  very  early  to  the 
Hague,  where  his  talents  met  with  universal  recog- 
nition, including  that  of  Prince  Maurice  of  Orange,  and 
where  he  married.  In  the  year  1652,  however,  he  re- 
moved to  Amsterdam  at  the  instance  of  one  of  his  chief 
patrons,  the  Burgomaster  Tulp.  Of  the  masters  who 
have  striven  pre-eminently  after  truth  he  is,  beyond  all 
question,  one  of  the  greatest  that  ever  lived.  In  order 
to  succeed  in  this  aim,  he  acquired  a  correctness  of 
drawing,  a  kind  of  modelling  which  imparts  an  almost 
plastic  effect  to  his  animals,  an  extraordinary  execution 
of  detail  in  the  most  solid  impasto,and  a  truth  of  colour- 
ing which  harmonises  astonishingly  with  the  time  of 
day.  In  his  landscapes,  which  generally  consist  of  a 
few  willows  in  the  foreground,  and  of  a  wide  view  over 

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meadows,  the  most  delicate  graduation  of  aerial  per-  Painters  of 

spective  is  seen.    With  few  exceptions,  his  animals  are  Animals 

small, and  his  pictures  proportionately  moderate  in  size. 

By  the  year  1647  ne  had  attained  his  full  perfection. 

Of  this  date  is  the  celebrated  group  called  The  Young 

Bull,  in  the  Hague  Gallery.    All  the  figures  in  this  are 

as  large  as  life,  and  so  extraordinarily  true  to  nature  as 

not  only  to  appear  real  at  a  certain  distance,  but  even 

to  keep  up  the  illusion  when  seen  near. 

A  picture  dated  1649,  now  in  Buckingham  Palace, 
of  two  cows  and  a  young  bull  in  a  pasture,  combines 
with  his  customary  fidelity  to  nature  a  more  than  com- 
mon power  of  effect,  and  breadth  and  freedom  of  treat- 
ment. To  the  same  year  belongs  also  The  Farmyard, 
formerly  in  the  Cassel  Gallery,  now  in  that  of  S.  Peters- 
burg, which,  according  to  Smith,  fully  deserves  its 
celebrity  both  for  the  clearness  and  warmth  of  the  sunset 
effect,  as  well  as  for  its  masterly  execution.  To  1650 
belongs  the  picture  of  Orpheus,  charming  the  animal 
world  by  the  strains  of  his  lyre,  in  the  Amsterdam 
Museum.  Here  we  see  that  the  master  had  also 
studied  wild  animals.  He  is  most  successful  in  the 
bear.  In  the  same  gallery  is  another  chef-d'  ceuvre  of 
the  same  year — a  hilly  landscape  with  a  shepherdess 
singing  to  her  child,  a  shepherd  playing  on  the  bag- 
pipe, and  oxen,  sheep,  and  goats  around. 

The  names  of  Weenix  and  Hondecoeter  are  so  in- 
separably associated  in  the  popular  mind  as  painters 
of  birds,  whose  respective  works  are  not  readily  dis- 
tinguishable moreover  by  the  casual  observer,  that  a 
short  excursion  into  their  family  histories  is  advisable, 
for  the  purpose  of  showing  how  it  was  that  this  particu- 
lar branch  of  the  art  was  so  successfully  practised  by 
the  two.    Moreover,  as  there  were  three  Hondecoeters 

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Painters  of  and  two  Weenixes  who  were  painters,  it  is  necessary  to 

Animals       say  something  about  each  of  them. 

Melchior  Hondecoeter,  the  best  known,  was  of 
an  ancient  and  noble  family.  He  was  instructed  till 
the  age  of  seventeen  by  his  father  Gysbert,  who  was  a 
tolerable  painter.  Giles  Hondecoeter,  his  grandfather, 
painted  live  birds  admirably,  but  chiefly  cocks  and  hens 
in  the  taste  of  Savery  and  Vincaboom.  Melchior  was 
born  in  1636,  and  studied  for  a  time  with  his  father; 
but  meantime  his  aunt  Josina  had  married  Jan  Baptist 
Weenix,  and  a  son  was  born  to  them,  Jan  Weenix,  who 
inherited  from  old  Giles  Hondecoeter,  his  grandfather, 
his  talent  for  painting  poultry,  and  from  his  father, 
Jan  Baptist  Weenix,  he  acquired  the  benefit  of  several 
influences  which  were  not  shared  by  his  cousin 
Melchior. 

Jan  Baptist  Weenix,  who  was  nicknamed 
"Rattle,"  was  born  at  Amsterdam  about  1621.  His 
father  was  an  architect,  who  bred  his  son  up  to  that 
profession,  but  he  was  afterwards  put  to  study  painting 
under  Abraham  Bloemart.  Soon  after  his  marriage 
with  Josina  he  was  seized  with  the  desire  to  visit  Italy, 
and  he  set  off  alone  to  Rome,  promising  to  return  in 
four  months.  In  Rome,  however,  he  was  so  well  re- 
ceived that  he  stayed  there  four  years,  and  Italianized 
himself  to  an  extent  that  may  be  seen  in  a  picture  in 
the  Wallace  Collection,  a  Coast  Scene  with  Classic 
Ruins,  which  he  signs  Gio.  Batta.  Weenix.  Though 
he  returned  to  Holland  and  settled  near  Utrecht,  his 
manner  was  sensibly  modified  by  his  sojourn  in  Rome. 
Jan  Weenix,  who  was  born  at  Amsterdam  in  1649, 
though  he  succeeded  in  so  far  assimilating  his  father's 
style  that  his  earlierworks  are  often  confused  with  those 
of  "Giovanni  Battista,"  did  not  acquire  the  energyor  the 

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dramatic  force  displayed  by  Melchior  Hondecoeter  in  Painters  of 
representing  live  birds  and  animals,  though  he  some-  Animals 
times  surpassed  him  in  the  finish  and  the  harmony  of 
his  decorative  arrangements  of  dead  game  and  still  life. 
Accordingly  the  one  usually  painted  dead  and  the  latter 
live  birds.  In  other  respects  there  is  not  much  to  dis- 
tinguish their  works. 

Nicholas  Berchem  was  the  only  other  pupil  of 
Jan  Baptist  Weenix  of  whom  we  know  anything. 
Berchem  had  other  masters,  beginning  with  his  father, 
who  was  a  painter  of  fish  and  tables  covered  with  plates, 
china  dishes,  and  such  like.  Having  given  his  son  the 
first  rudiments  of  his  art  he  found  himself  unequal  to 
the  task  of  cultivating  the  excellent  disposition  he 
observed  in  him,  and  therefore  placed  him  with  Van 
Goyen,  Nicholas  Moyaert,  Peter  Grebber,  Jan  Wils, 
and  lastly  with  Jan  Baptist  Weenix,  all  of  whom  had 
the  honour  of  assisting  to  form  so  excellent  a  painter. 
Indefatigable  at  his  easel,  Berchem  acquired  a  manner 
both  easy  and  expeditious  ;  to  see  him  work,  painting 
appeared  a  mere  diversion  to  him. 

His  wife  was  the  daughter  of  his  instructor,  Jan 
Wils,  and  was  so  avaricious  that  she  allowed  him  no 
rest.  Busy  as  he  was  by  nature,  she  used  to  sit  under 
his  studio,  and  when  she  neither  heard  him  sing  nor  stir, 
she  struck  upon  the  ceiling  to  rouse  him.  She  got  from 
him  all  the  money  he  earned  by  his  labour,  so  that 
he  was  obliged  to  borrow  from  his  scholars  when  he 
wanted  money  to  buy  prints  that  were  offered  him, 
which  was  the  only  pleasure  he  had.  The  Musical 
Shepherdess  at  Hertford  House  is  a  good  example  of 
his  style,  and  the  description  of  it  in  Smith's  catalogue 
shows  in  what  estimation  the  artist  was  held  in  early 
Victorian  days  : — "  This  beautiful  pastoral  scene  repre- 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  o/'sents  a  bold  rocky  coast  under  the  appearance  of  the 
Animals  close  of  day.  The  rustics  have  ended  their  labours  and 
are  recreating  with  music  and  dancing.  A  group  com- 
posed of  two  peasants  and  a  like  number  of  women 
occupies  the  foreground  ;  one  of  the  latter,  attired  in  a 
blue  mantle,  is  gaily  striking  a  tambourine,  and  dancing 
to  the  music  ;  her  companion  in  a  yellow  dress  sits  near 
her ;  the  shepherds  also  are  seated,  and  one  of  them 
appears  to  have  just  ceased  playing  a  pipe  which  he 
holds.  The  goats  are  browsing  near  them.  Painted 
in  the  artist's  most  fascinating  style." 

That  Berchem  had  been  to  Italy  is  pretty  certain, 
and  though  no  authentic  account  of  his  visit  is  re- 
corded, there  is  a  story  that  when  Jacob  Ruisdael  went 
to  Rome  as  a  young  man,  Nicholas  Berchem  was  the 
first  acquaintance  he  met,  and  that  their  friendship  was 
of  long  standing.  Their  frequent  walks  round  about 
Rome  gave  them  the  opportunity  of  working  together 
from  Nature,  and  one  day  a  cardinal  seeing  them  at 
work,  inquired  what  they  were  doing.  His  eminence 
was  agreeably  impressed  with  their  drawings,  and  in- 
vited them  to  visit  him  in  Rome.  The  painters  re- 
turned to  their  work,  where  they  met  with  a  second 
rencontre  of  a  very  different  nature  ;  a  gang  of  thieves 
robbed  and  stripped  them  of  their  clothes.  They  re- 
turned in  their  shirts  to  the  city,  and  called  on  the 
cardinal,  who  took  pity  upon  them,  ordered  them 
clothes,  and  afterwards  employed  them  in  several  con- 
siderable works  in  his  palace. 

Berchem  at  one  time  took  up  his  abode  in  the 
Castle  of  Bentheim,  and  as  both  he  and  Ruisdael  have 
left  several  pictures  of  this  castle  it  may  be  inferred 
that  they  worked  there  together,  as  at  Rome. 

Apart  from  personal  friendship  there  is  nothing  to 

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connect  Berchem  with    Ruisdael,   the  popularity  of  Painters  of 
the  former  being  derived  from  qualities  of  a  totally  Animals 
different  nature  from  those  which  raise  Ruisdael  far 
above  any  of    his   contemporaries   as   a    landscape 
painter. 

Jan  Van  Huysum  was  born  at  Amsterdam  in  1682. 
His  father,  Justus  Van  Huysum,  who  dealt  in  pictures, 
was  himself  a  middling  painter  in  most  kinds  of  paint- 
ing. He  taught  his  son  to  paint  screens,  figures  and 
vases  on  wood,  landscape,  and  sometimes  flowers  ;  but 
the  son  being  arrived  at  a  reasoning  age  perceived  that 
to  work  in  every  branch  of  his  art  was  the  way  to  excel 
in  none,  therefore  he  confined  himself  to  flowers,  fruit, 
and  landscape,  and  quitting  his  father's  school  set  up 
for  himself. 

No  one  before  Van  Huysum  attained  so  perfect  a 
manner  of  representing  the  beauty  of  flowers  and  the 
down  and  bloom  of  fruit ;  for  he  painted  with  greater 
freedom  than  Velvet  Breughel  and  Mignon,  with  more 
tenderness  and  nature  than  Mario  di  Fiori,  Andrea 
Belvedere,  Michel  de  Campidoglio  or  Daniel  Seghers  ; 
with  more  mellowness  than  de  Heem,  and  with  more 
vigour  of  colouring  than  Baptist  Monoyer. 

His  pictures  of  flowers  and  fruit  pleasing  an 
English  gentleman,  he  introduced  them  into  his  own 
country,  where  they  came  into  vogue  and  yielded  a 
high  price.  To  express  the  motions  of  the  smallest 
insects  with  justice  he  used  to  contemplate  them 
through  the  microscope  with  great  attention.  At  the 
times  of  the  year  when  the  flowers  were  in  bloom,  and 
the  fruit  in  perfection,  he  used  to  design  them  in  his 
own  garden,  and  the  Sieur  Gulet  and  Voorhelm  sent 
him  the  most  beautiful  productions  in  those  kinds  they 
could  pick  up. 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  of  His  reputation  rose  to  such  a  height  that  all  the 
Animals  curious  in  painting"  sought  his  works  with  great  eager- 
ness, which  encouraged  him  to  raise  his  prices  so  high 
that  his  pictures  at  last  grew  out  of  the  reach  of  any 
but  princes  and  men  of  the  greatest  fortune.  He  was 
the  first  flower  painter  that  ever  thought  of  laying  them 
on  light  grounds,  which  requires  much  greater  art  than 
to  paint  them  on  dark  ones. 

Van  Huysum  died  at  Amsterdam  in  1749.  He 
never  had  any  pupil  but  a  young  woman  named 
Haverman,  and  his  brother  Michael.  Two  other 
brothers  have  distinguished  themselves  in  painting, 
one  named  Justus,  who  painted  battles,  and  died  at 
twenty-two  years  old,  the  other  named  James,  who 
ended  his  days  in  England  in  1740.  He  copied  the 
pictures  of  his  brother  John  so  well  as  to  deceive  the 
connoisseurs  :  he  had  usually  ^20  for  each  copy.  For 
the  originals,  it  may  be  noted,  from  a  thousand  to 
fourteen  hundred  florins  was  paid. 


V 

PAINTERS  OF  LANDSCAPE 

Coming  now  to  the  landscape  painters  we  find  that 
Jan  Van  Goyen,  born  at  Leyden  in  1596,  was  destined 
to  exert  a  really  powerful  influence,  inasmuch  as  he 
was  the  founder,  as  is  generally  acknowledged,  of  the 
Dutch  school  of  homely  native  landscape.  Beginning 
with  figure  subjects,  he  discovered  in  their  landscape 
backgrounds  his  real  mdtier,  and  seems  only  to  have 
realized  his  great  gifts  when  he  looked  further  into 
nature  than  was  possible  when  painting  a  foreground 

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picture.  He  appears  to  have  been  by  nature  or  by  Painters  of 
inclination  long-sighted,  and  he  is  never  so  happy  as  Landscape 
when  painting  distance,  either  along  the  banks  of  a 
river  or  looking  out  to  sea.  This  extended  gaze  taught 
him  something  of  atmosphere  that  few  painters  beside 
himself  ever  acquired,  and  helped  him  to  the  mastery 
of  tone  which  appears  to  have  influenced  so  many  of 
his  followers,  as  for  example  Van  de  Velde  in  the  paint- 
ing of  sea-pieces. 

Jan  Wynants,  born  at  Haarlem  about  1620,  and 
still  living  in  1677,  was  the  first  master  who  applied 
all  the  developed  qualities  of  the  Dutch  School  to  the 
treatment  of  landscape  painting.  In  general  his  pre- 
vailing tone  is  clear  and  bright,  more  especially  in  the 
green  of  his  trees  and  plants,  which  in  many  cases, 
merges  into  blue.  One  of  his  characteristics  is  a  fallen 
tree  trunk  in  the  foreground,  as  may  be  seen  in  three 
out  of  the  six  examples  in  the  National  Gallery.  The 
carefulness  of  his  execution  explains  how  it  was  that 
in  so  long  a  life  he  only  produced  a  moderate  number 
of  pictures.  Smith's  catalogue  contains  about  214. 
These  differ  much  according  to  their  different  periods. 
In  his  first  manner  peasants'  cottages  or  ruins  play  an 
important  part,  and  the  view  is  more  or  less  shut  in 
by  trees  of  a  heavy  dark  green,  the  execution  solid  and 
careful.  In  his  middle  time  he  generally  paints  open 
views  of  a  rather  uneven  country,  diversified  by  wood 
and  water.  That  Wynants  retained  his  full  skill  even 
in  advanced  life  is  proved  by  a  picture  dated  1672,  in 
the  Munich  Gallery,  representing  a  road  leading  to  a 
fenced  wood  and  a  sandhill,  near  which  in  the  fore- 
ground are  some  cows  (by  Lingelbach)  being  driven 
along.  In  his  last  manner  a  heavy  uniformly  brown 
tone  is  often  observable. 

203 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  of       It  is  his  genuine  feeling  for  nature  that  makes 
Landscape   Wynant's  pictures  so  popular  in  England,  where  we 
meet  with  a  considerable  number  of  his  best  works. 

Jacob  Ruisdael  (born  at  Haarlem  1628,  died 
there  1682)  is  supposed  to  have  developed  under  the 
influence  of  a  school  there  that  was  opposing  Van 
Goyen's  tone  treatment  by  local  colour.  Though  not 
always  the  most  charming,  Ruisdael  is  certainly  the 
greatest  and  the  most  profound  of  the  Dutch  landscape 
painters.  His  wide  expanses  of  sky,  earth  or  sea,  with 
their  tender  gradations  of  aerial  perspective,  diversi- 
fied here  and  there  by  alternations  of  sunshine  and 
shadow,  attract  us  as  much  by  the  pathos  as  by  the 
picturesqueness  of  their  character.  His  scenes  of 
mountainous  districts  with  foaming  waterfalls  ;  or  bare 
piles  of  rock  and  sombre  lakes  are  imbued  with  a  feel- 
of  melancholy.  Ruisdael's  work  may  be  well  studied 
in  the  six  examples  at  Hertford  House,  and  the  four- 
teen in  the  National  Gallery.  Among  his  finer  works 
in  Continental  collections  the  following  are  some  of 
those  selected  by  Kugler  for  description.  At  the 
Hague  is  one  of  his  wide  expanses — a  view  of  the 
country  around  Haarlem,  the  town  itself  looking  small 
on  the  horizon,  under  a  lofty  expanse  of  cloudy  sky 
in  the  foreground  a  bleach ing-ground  and  some  houses 
reminding  us,  by  the  manner  in  which  they  are  intro- 
duced, of  Hobbema.  The  prevailiug  tone  is  cool,  the 
sky  singularly  beautiful,  and  the  execution  wonder- 
fully delicate.  A  flat  country  with  a  road  leading  to 
a  village,  and  fields  with  wheatsheaves,  is  in  the 
Dresden  Gallery.  This  is  temperate  in  colouring  and 
beautifully  lighted.  Equally  fine  is  an  extensive  view 
over  a  hilly  but  bare  country,  through  which  a  river 
runs ;    in  the  Louvre.      The  horseman  and  beggar 

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on  a  bridge  are  by  Wouvermans :  here  the  grey-  Painters  of 
greenish  harmony  of  the  tone  is  in  fine  accordance  Landscape 
with  the  poetic  grandeur  of  the  subject.  A  hill  covered 
with  oak  woods,  with  a  peasant  hastening  to  a  hut  to 
escape  the  gathering  shower,  is  in  the  Munich  Gallery. 
The  golden  warmth  of  the  trees  and  ground,  and  the 
contrast  between  the  deep  clear  chiaroscuro  and  soft 
rain-clouds,  and  the  bright  gleam  of  sunshine,  render 
this  picture  one  of  the  finest  by  this  master. 

The  peculiar  charm  which  is  seen  in  Holland  by 
the  combination  of  lofty  trees  and  calm  water  is  fully 
represented  in  the  following  works  : — The  Chase ;  in 
the  Dresden  Gallery.  Here  in  the  still  water  in  the 
foreground — through  which  a  stag-hunt  (by  Adrian 
van  de  Velde)  is  passing — clouds,  warm  with  morning 
sunlight,  appear  reflected.  In  this  picture,  remarkable 
as  it  is  for  size,  being  3  ft.  10^  in.  high,  by  5  ft.  2  in. 
wide,  the  sense  even  of  the  fresh  morning  is  not  with- 
out a  tinge  of  gentle  melancholy.  A  noble  wood  of 
oaks,  beeches  and  elms,  about  the  size  of  the  last- 
mentioned  picture,  is  in  the  Louvre.  In  the  centre, 
through  an  opening  in  the  woods,  are  seen  distant 
hills.  The  cattle  and  figures  upon  a  flooded  road  are 
by  Berchem.  In  power,  warmth,  and  treatment,  this 
is  also  nearly  allied  to  the  preceding  work.  Of  his 
waterfalls,  the  most  remarkable  are — A  picture  at  the 
Hague,  which  is  particularly  striking  for  its  warm 
lighting,  and  careful  execution.  Another  with  Ben- 
theim  Castle,  so  often  repeated  by  Ruisdael,  is  at 
Amsterdam.  In  the  same  collection  is  a  landscape, 
with  rocks,  woods,  and  a  larger  waterfall.  This  has  a 
grandly  poetic  character  which,  with  the  broad  and 
solid  handling,  plainly  shows  the  influence  of  Ever- 
dingen.     The  same  remark  may  be  applied  to  the 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  of  waterfall,  No.  328,  in  the  Munich  Gallery.  Here  the 
Landscape  dark,  rainy  sky,  enhances  the  sublime  impression  made 
by  the  foaming  torrent  that  rushes  down  the  rocky 
masses.  Another  work  worthy  to  rank  with  the  fore- 
going is  The  Jewish  Cemetry,  in  the  Dresden  Gallery : 
a  pallid  sunbeam  lights  up  some  of  the  tombstones, 
between  which  a  torrent  impetuously  flows. 

The  Landscape  with  Waterfall 'at  Hertford  House 
is  a  good  example ;  the  Landscape  with  a  Farm  in  the 
same  collection  is  another,  though  in  this  the  figures 
and  cattle  are  by  Adrian  Van  der  Velde.  Ostade  and 
Wouverman  are  also  said  to  have  helped  him  with  his 
figures,  and  it  is  possible  that  one  or  other  of  them 
ought  to  have  some  of  the  credit  for  the  beautiful  View 
on  the  Shore  at  Scheveningen  in  the  National  Gallery 
(No.  1390).  The  Landscape  with  Ruins  (No.  746)  is 
perhaps  the  finest  of  the  others  there. 

Willem  van  de  Velde,  the  younger,  born  at 
Amsterdam  1633,  died  at  Greenwich  1707.  His  first 
master  was  his  father,  Willem  van  de  Velde  the  elder, 
but  his  principal  instructor  was  Simon  de  Vlieger. 
The  earlier  part  of  his  professional  life  was  spent  in 
Holland,  where,  besides  numerous  pictures  of  the 
various  aspects  of  marine  scenery,  he  painted  several 
well-known  sea-fights  in  which  the  Dutch  had  obtained 
the  victory  over  the  English.  He  afterwards  followed 
his  father  to  England,  where  he  was  greatly  patronized 
by  Charles  II.  and  James  II.  for  whom,  in  turn,  he 
painted  the  naval  victories  of  the  English  over  the 
Dutch.  He  was  also  much  employed  by  amateurs  of 
art  among  the  English  nobility  and  gentry.  There  is 
no  question  that  Willem  van  de  Velde  the  younger  is 
the  greatest  marine  painter  of  the  whole  Dutch  School. 
His  perfect  knowledge  of  lineal  and  aerial  perspective, 

206 


Dutch  School 

and  the  incomparable  technique  which  he  inherited  from  Painters  of 
his  school,  enabled  him  to  represent  the  sea  and  the  sky  Landscape 
with  the  utmost  truth  of  form,  atmosphere  and  colour, 
and  to  enliven  the  scene  with  the  purest  feeling  for  the 
picturesque,  with  the  most  natural  incidents  of  sea- 
faring life. 

Two  of  his  pictures  at  Amsterdam  are  particularly 
remarkable;  representing  the  English  flagship  The 
Prince  Royal  striking  her  colours  in  the  fight  with 
the  Dutch  fleet  of  1666;  and  its  companion,  four 
English  men-of-war  brought  in  as  prizes  at  the  same 
fight.  Here  the  painter  has  represented  himself  in  a 
small  boat,  from  which  he  actually  witnessed  the  battle. 
This  accounts  for  the  extraordinary  truth  with  which 
every  particular  of  the  scene  is  rendered  in  such  small 
pictures,  which,  combined  with  their  delicate  greyish 
tone,  and  the  mastery  of  the  execution,  render  them 
two  of  his  finest  works.  A  view  of  the  city  of  Amster- 
dam, dated  1686,  taken  from  the  river,  is  an  especially 
good  specimen  of  his  large  pictures.  It  is  about  5  ft. 
high  by  10  ft.  wide.  The  vessels  in  the  river  are 
arranged  with  great  feeling  for  the  picturesque,  and  the 
treatment  of  details  is  admirable.  His  greatest  suc- 
cesses, however,  are  in  the  representation  of  calm  seas, 
as  may  be  seen  in  a  small  picture  at  Munich.  In  the 
centre  of  the  middle  distance  is  a  frigate,  and  in  the 
foreground  smaller  vessels.  The  fine  silvery  tone  in 
which  the  whole  is  kept  finds  a  sufficient  counter- 
balance of  colour  in  the  yellowish  sunlit  clouds,  and 
in  the  brownish  vessels  and  their  sails.  Nothing  can 
be  more  exquisite  than  the  tender  reflections  of  these 
in  the  water.  Of  almost  similar  beauty  is  a  picture  of 
about  the  same  size,  with  four  vessels,  in  the  Cassel 
Gallery,  which  is  signed  and  dated  1653.     As  a  con- 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  o/'trast  to  this  class  of  works,  may  be  mentioned   The 

Landscape   Gathering  Tempest,  in  the  Munich  Gallery.     This  is 

brilliantly  lighted,  and  of  great  delicacy  of  tone  in 

the  distance,  though  the  foreground  has  somewhat 

darkened. 

Meindert  Hobbema  (1638- i  709)  was  a  friend  as 
well  as  a  pupil  of  Jacob  Ruisdael.  The  fact  that  such 
distinguished  painters  as  Adrian  van  de  Velde,  Wou- 
vermans,  Berchem,  and  Lingelbach,  executed  the 
figures  and  animals  in  his  pictures  proves  the  esteem 
in  which  he  was  held  by  his  contemporaries ;  never- 
theless it  is  evident  that  the  public  was  slow  in  con- 
ceding to  him  the  rank  which  he  deserved,  for  his  name 
is  not  found  for  more  than  a  century  after  his  death  in 
any  even  of  the  most  elaborate  dictionaries  of  art,  while 
the  catalogues  of  the  most  important  picture  sales  in 
Holland  make  no  mention  of  him  at  all  up  to  the  year 
1739 ;  when  a  picture  by  him,  although  much  extolled, 
was  sold  for  only  71  florins,  and  even  in  1768  one  of  his 
masterpieces  only  fetched  300  florins.  The  English 
were  the  first  to  discover  his  merits. 

The  peculiar  characteristics  of  this  master,  who 
next  to  Ruisdael,  is  confessedly  at  the  head  of  land- 
scape painters  of  the  Dutch  School,  will  be  best  appre- 
ciated by  comparing  him  with  his  rival.  In  two  most 
important  qualities — fertility  of  inventive  genius,  and 
poetry  of  feeling — he  is  decidedly  inferior  :  the  range 
of  his  subjects  being  far  narrower.  His  most  frequent 
scenes  are  villages  surrounded  by  trees,  such  as  are  fre- 
quently met  with  in  the  districts  of  Guelderland,  with 
winding  pathways  leading  from  house  to  house.  A 
water-mill  occasionally  forms  a  prominent  feature. 
Often,  too,  he  represents  a  slightly  uneven  country, 
diversified  by  groups  or  rows  of  trees,  wheat-fields, 

208 


Dutch  School 

meadows,  and  small  pools.     Occasionally  he  gives  us  Painters  of 

a.  view  of  part  of  a  town,  with  its  gates,  canals  with  Landscape 

sluices,  and  quays  with  houses  ;  more  rarely,  the  ruins 

of  an  old  castle,  with  an  extensive  view  of  a  flat  country, 

or  some  stately  residence.     In  the  composition  of  all 

these  pictures,  however,  we  do  not  find  that  elevated 

and  picturesque  taste  which  characterises  Ruisdael; 

on  the  contrary  they  have  a  thoroughly  portrait-like 

appearance,  decidedly  prosaic,  but  always  surprizingly 

truthful.    The  greater  number  of  Hobbema's  pictures 

are  as  much  characterized  by  a  warm  and  golden  tone 

as  those  of  Ruisdael  by  the  reverse  ;  his  greens  being 

yellowish  in  the  lights  and  brownish  in  the  shadows — 

both  of  singular  transparency.    In  pictures  of  this  kind 

the  influence  of  Rembrandt  is  perhaps  perceptible,  and 

they  are  superior  in  brilliancy  to  any  work  by  Ruisdael. 

While  these  works  chiefly  present  us  with  the  season 

of  harvest  and  sunset-light,  there  are  others  in  a  cool, 

silvery,  morning  lighting,  and  with  the  bright  green 

of  spring,  that  surpass  Ruisdael's  in  clearness.     His 

woods  also,  owing  to  the  various  lights  that  fall  on 

them,  are  of  greater  transparency. 

As  almost  all  the  galleries  on  the  Continent  were 
formed  at  a  period  when  the  works  of  Hobbema  were 
little  prized  (Ticcozzi's  Dictionary,  in  1818,  does  not 
include  his  name),  they  either  possess  no  specimens, 
or  some  of  an  inferior  class,  so  that  no  adequate  idea 
can  be  formed  of  him.  The  most  characteristic  ex- 
ample to  be  met  with  on  the  Continent  is  a  landscape 
in  the  Berlin  Museum,  No.  886,  an  oak  wood,  with 
scattered  lights,  a  calm  piece  of  water  in  the  foreground, 
and  a  sun-lit  village  in  the  distance.  Of  the  eight 
pictures  in  the  National  Gallery  from  his  hand,  most 
are  good,  and  one  world-famous — The  Avenue,  Mid- 

o  209 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Painters  ofdelharnis,  which  may  be  called  his  masterpiece.     This 

Landscape  was  painted  in  1689,  when  he  had  reached  the  age  of 

fifty.     His  diploma  picture,  painted  in    1663,   is  at 

Hertford  House,  together  with  four  other  interesting 

examples,  all  of  which  repay  careful  study. 


210 


GERMAN  SCHOOLS 

The  origins  of  the  German  Schools  of  painting  are  German 
obscure,  but  it  is  fairly  certain  that  Cologne  was  the  first  Schools 
place  in  which  the  art  was  soonest  established  to  any 
considerable  extent.  Here,  as  in  the  Netherlands,  we 
cannot  find  any  traces  of  immediate  Italian  influences. 
The  first  painter  who  can  be  identified  with  any  certainty 
is  Wilhelm  von  Herle,  called  Meister  Wilhelm, 
whose  activity  is  not  traceable  earlier  than  about  1358. 
Most  of  the  pictures  formerly  attributed  to  him  have, 
however,  been  assigned  to  his  pupil  Hermann  Wynrich 
von  Wesel,  who  on  the  death  of  his  master  in  1378 
married  his  widow  and  continued  his  practice,  until  his 
death  somewhere  about  14 14.  His  most  important 
works  were  six  panels  of  the  High  Altar  of  the  Cathe- 
dral, the  so-called  Madonna  of  the  Pea  Blossoms  and 
two  Crucifixions  at  Cologne,  and  the  S.  Veronica  at 
Munich,  dated  1410. 

More  important  was  Stephen  Lochner,  who  died 
at  Cologne  in  1451.  His  influence  was  widespread  and 
his  school  apparently  numerous,  until,  in  1450,  Roger 
van  der  Weyden,  returning  from  Italy,  stopped  at 
Cologne  and  painted  his  large  triptych,  which  eclipsed 
Lochner.  From  this  time  onwards  the  school  of  Cologne 
is  represented  by  painters  whose  names  are  not  known, 
and  who  are  accordingly  distinguished  by  the  subjects 
of  their  works ;  such  as  The  Master  of  the  Glorification 

211 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


German  of  the  Virgin,   The  Master  of  S.  Bartholomew,  etc., 

Schools  until  we  come  to  Bartel  Bruyn  (c.  1493-1553).  a  portrait 

painter  who  is  represented  at  Berlin,  and  by  a  picture  of 

Dr  Fuchsius  bequeathed  to  the  National  Gallery  by 

George  Salting. 

In  other  parts  of  Germany,  particularly  in  Nurem- 
berg, Ulm,  Augsburg,  and  Basle,  various  names  of 
painters  of  the  latter  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  have 
survived,  but  their  works  are  of  little  interest  except  to 
the  connoisseur  as  showing  the  influence  under  which 
the  two  great  artists  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Albert 
Diirer  and  Hans  Holbein,  and  one  or  two  lesser  lights 
like  Lucas  Cranach,  Albert  Altdorfer,  and  Adam 
Elsheimer,  were  formed. 

In  Germany  the  taste  for  the  fantastic  in  art  peculiar 
to  the  Middle  Ages,  though  it  engendered  clever  and 
spirited  works  such  as  those  of  Quentyn  Massys  and 
Lucas  van  Leyden,  was  still  unfavourable  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  pure  beauty,  scenes  from  the  Apocalypse,  Dances 
of  Death,  etc.,  being  among  the  favourite  subjects  for 
art.  On  the  other  hand,  the  pictorial  treatment  of  antique 
literature,  a  world  so  suggestive  of  beautiful  forms,  was 
so  little  comprehended  by  the  German  mind  that  they 
only  sought  to  express  it  through  the  medium  of  those 
fantastic  ideas  with  very  childish  and  even  tasteless 
results.  We  must  also  remember  that  that  average 
education  of  the  various  classes  of  society  which  the 
fine  arts  require  for  their  protection  stood  on  a  very  low 
footing  in  Germany.  In  Italy  the  favour  with  which 
works  of  art  was  regarded  was  far  more  widely  extended. 
Thisagain  gave  rise  to  a  more  elevated  personal  position 
on  the  part  of  the  artist,  which  in  Italy  was  not  only  one 
of  more  consideration,  but  of  incomparably  greater  in- 
dependence.   In  this  latter  respect  Germany  was  so 

212 


PLATE   XXXII. 
"THE  MASTER  OF  ST  BARTHOLOMEW" 

TWO   SAINTS 

National  Gallery,  London 


German  Schools 

deficient  that  the  genius  of  Albert  Diirer  and  Holbein  German 
was  miserably  cramped  and  hindered  in  development  Schools 
by  the  poverty  and  littleness  of  surrounding  circum- 
stances. It  is  known  that  of  all  the  German  princes 
no  one  but  the  Elector  Frederick  the  Wise  ever  gave 
Albert  Diirer  a  commission  for  pictures,  while  a  writ- 
ing addressed  by  the  great  painter  to  the  magistracy  of 
Nuremberg  tells  us  that  his  native  city  never  gave  him 
employment  even  to  the  value  of  500  florins.  At  the 
same  time  his  pictures  were  so  meanly  paid,  that  for  the 
means  of  subsistence,  as  he  says  himself,  he  was  com- 
pelled to  devote  himself  to  engraving.  How  far  more 
such  a  man  as  Diirer  would  have  been  appreciated  in 
Italy  or  in  the  Netherlands  is  further  evidenced  in  the 
above-mentioned  writing,  where  he  states  that  he  was 
offered  200  ducats  a  year  in  Venice  and  300  Philips- 
gulden  in  Antwerp,  if  he  would  settle  in  either  of  those 
cities.  And  Holbein  fared  still  worse:  there  is  no  evi- 
dence whatever  that  any  German  prince  ever  troubled 
himself  at  all  about  the  great  painter  while  at  Basle,  and 
his  art  was  so  little  cared  for  that  necessity  compelled 
him  to  go  to  England,  where  a  genius  fitted  for  the 
highest  undertakings  of  historical  painting  was  limited 
to  the  sphere  of  portraiture.  The  crowning  impediments 
finally,  which  hindered  the  progress  of  German  art,  and 
perverted  it  from  its  true  aim,  were  the  Reformation, 
which  narrowed  the  sphere  of  ecclesiastical  works,  and 
the  pernicious  imitation  of  the  great  Italian  masters 
which  ensued. 

Lucas  Cranach,  born  in  1472,  received  his  first  in- 
structions in  art  from  his  father,  his  later  teaching  prob- 
ably from  Matthew  Grunewald.  In  some  instances  he 
attained  to  the  expression  of  dignity,  earnestness  and 
feeling,  but  generally  his  characteristics  are  a  naive  and 

213 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


German  childlike  cheerfulness  and  a  gentle  and  almost  timid 
Schools  grace.  The  impression  produced  by  his  style  of  repre- 
sentation reminds  one  of  the  "Volksbiicher"  and 
"Volkslieder."  Many  of  his  church  pictures  have  a 
very  peculiar  significance:  in  these  he  stands  forth 
properly  speaking  as  the  painter  of  the  Reformation. 
Intimate  both  with  Luther  and  Melanchthon,  he  seizes 
on  the  central  aim  of  their  doctrine,  viz.,  the  insufficiency 
of  good  works  and  the  sole  efficacy  of  faith.  His 
mythological  subjects  appeal  directly  to  the  eye  like  real 
portraits;  and  sometimes  also  by  means  of  a  certain 
grace  and  naivete'  of  motive.  We  may  cite  as  an  instance 
the  Diana  seated  on  a  stag  in  a  small  picture  at  Berlin, 
No.  564.  The  Fountain  of  Youth,  also  at  Berlin,  No. 
593,  is  a  picture  of  peculiar  character;  a  large  basin 
surrounded  by  steps  and  with  a  richly  adorned  fountain 
forms  the  centre.  On  one  side,  where  the  country  is  stony 
and  barren,  a  multitude  of  old  women  are  dragged  for- 
ward on  horses,  waggons  or  carriages,  and  with  much 
trouble  are  got  into  the  water.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
fountain  they  appear  as  young  maidens  splashing  about 
and  amusing  themselves  with  all  kinds  of  playful  mis- 
chief; close  by  is  a  large  pavilion  into  which  a  herald 
courteously  invites  them  to  enter  and  where  they  are 
arrayed  in  costly  apparel.  A  feast  is  prepared  in  a 
smiling  meadow,  which  seems  to  be  followed  by  a  dance; 
the  gay  crowd  loses  itself  in  a  neighbouring  grove.  The 
men  unfortunately  have  not  become  young,  and  retain 
their  grey  beards.  The  picture  is  of  the  year  1546,  the 
seventy-fourth  of  Cranach's  age. 

Albert  Altdorfer  was  born  1 488  at  Altdorf,  near 
Landshuth,  in  Bavaria,  and  settled  at  Ratisbon,  where 
he  died  1528.  He  invested  the  fantastic  tendency  of  the 
time  with  a  poetic  feeling — especially  in  landscape — 

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German  Schools 

and  he  developed  it  so  as  to  attain  a  perfection  in  this  German 
sort   of  romantic  painting  that  no  other  artist  had  Schools 
reached.  In  his  later  period  he  was  strongly  influenced 
by  Italian  art.    Altdorfer's  principal  work  is  in  the 
Munich  Gallery,  and  is  thus  described  by  Schlegel  :— 

"  It  represents  the  Victory  of  Alexander  the  Great 
over  Darius;  the  costume  is  that  of  the  artist's  own  day, 
as  it  would  be  treated  in  the  chivalrous  poems  of  the 
middle  ages — man  and  horse  are  sheathed  in  plate  and 
mail,  with  surcoatsof  gold  or  embroidery ;  the  chamfrons 
upon  the  heads  of  the  horses,  the  glittering  lances  and 
stirrups,  and  the  variety  of  the  weapons,  form  altogether 
a  scene  of  indescribable  splendour  and  richness.  ...  It 
is,  in  truth,  a  little  world  on  a  few  square  feet  of  canvas  ; 
the  hosts  of  combatants  who  advance  on  all  sides 
against  each  other  are  innumerable,  and  the  view  into 
the  background  appears  interminable.  In  the  distance 
is  the  ocean,  with  high  rocks  and  a  rugged  island 
between  them ;  ships  of  war  appear  in  the  offing 
and  a  whole  fleet  of  vessels — on  the  left  the  moon  is 
setting — on  the  right  the  sun  rising — both  shining 
through  the  opening  clouds — a  clear  and  striking 
image  of  the  events  represented.  The  armies  are 
arranged  in  rank  and  column  without  the  strange  atti- 
tudes, contrasts,  and  distortions  generally  exhibited  in 
so-called  battle-pieces.  How  indeed  would  this  have 
been  possible  with  such  a  vast  multitude  of  figures  ? 
The  whole  is  in  the  plain  and  severe,  or  it  may  be  the 
stiff  manner  of  the  old  style.  At  the  same  time  the 
character  and  execution  of  these  little  figures  is  most 
masterly  and  profound.  And  what  variety,  what  expres- 
sion there  is,  not  merely  in  the  character  of  the  single 
warriors  and  knights,  but  in  the  hosts  themselves!  Here 
crowds  of  black  archers  rush  down  troop  after  troop  from 

215 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


German  the  mountain  with  the  rage  of  a  foaming  torrent ;  on  the 
Schools  other  side  high  upon  the  rocks  in  the  far  distance  a 
scattered  crowd  of  flying  men  are  turning  round  in  a 
defile.  The  point  of  the  greatest  interest  stands  out 
brilliantly  from  the  centre  of  the  whole — Alexander  and 
Darius  both  in  armour  of  burnished  gold;  Alexander  on 
Bucephalus  with  his  lance  in  rest  advances  before  his 
men  and  presses  on  the  flying  Darius,  whose  charioteer 
has  already  fallen  on  his  white  horses,  and  who  looks 
back  upon  his  conqueror  with  all  the  despair  of  a 
vanquished  monarch." 

Albert  Durer  (147 i- 1528),  by  his  overpowering 
genius,  may  be  called  the  sole  representative  of  German 
art  of  his  period.  He  was  gifted  with  a  power  of  con- 
ception which  traced  nature  through  all  her  finest 
shades,  and  with  a  lively  sense,  as  well  for  the  solemn 
and  the  sublime,  as  for  simple  grace  and  tenderness ; 
above  all,  he  had  an  earnest  and  truthful  feeling  in  art 
united  with  a  capacity  for  the  most  earnest  study.  These 
qualities  were  sufficient  to  place  him  by  the  side  of  the 
greatest  artists  whom  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

One  of  the  earliest  portraits  by  Albert  Durer  known 
to  us  is  that  of  his  father,  Albert  Durer,  the  goldsmith, 
dated  1497,  in  our  National  Gallery.  In  the  year  1644, 
another  version  of  this  picture,  which  was  engraved  by 
Hollar,  was  in  the  collection  of  the  Earl  of  Arundel,  and 
is  now  in  that  of  the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  at  Syon 
House.  Of  about  the  same  time — that  is  to  say,  before 
1500 — are  the  portraits  of  Oswald  Krell,  at  Munich,  of 
Frederick  the  Wise,  at  Berlin,  and  of  himself,  at  the 
Prado. 

Several  of  Albert  Diirer's  pictures  of  the  year  1500 
are  known  to  us.  The  first  and  most  important  is  his 
own  portrait  in  the  Munich  Gallery,  which  represents 

216 


German  Schools 

him  full  face  with  his  hand  laid  on  the  fur  trimming  of  German 
his  robe.  Schools 

His  finest  picture  of  the  year  1504  is  an  Adoration 
of  the  Kings,  originally  painted  for  Frederick  the  Wise, 
Elector  of  Saxony,  subsequently  presented  by  the 
Elector  Christian  II.  to  the  Emperor  Rudolph  II.,  and 
finally,  on  the  occasion  of  an  exchange  of  pictures,  trans- 
ferred from  Vienna  to  Florence,  where  it  now  hangs  in 
the  Tribune  of  the  Uffizi.  The  heads  are  of  thoroughly 
realistic  treatment;  the  Virgin  a  portrait  from  some 
model  of  no  attractive  character;  the  second  King  a 
portrait  of  the  painter  himself.  The  landscape  back- 
ground exactly  resembles  that  in  the  well-known  en- 
graving of  S.  Eustace,  the  period  of  which  is  thus  pretty 
nearly  defined.  It  is  carefully  painted  in  a  fine  body  of 
colour. 

In  1505  Durer  made  a  second  journey  into  Upper 
Italy,  and  remained  a  considerable  time  at  Venice.  Of 
his  occupations  in  this  city  the  letters  written  to  his 
friend  Wilibald  Pirckheimer  which  have  come  down  to 
us  give  many  interesting  particulars.  He  there  executed 
for  the  German  Company  a  picture  known  as  The  Feast 
of  Rose  Garlands,  which  brought  him  great  fame,  and 
by  its  brilliant  colouring  silenced  the  assertion  of  his 
envious  adversaries  "that  he  was  a  good  engraver,  but 
knew  not  how  to  deal  with  colours."  In  the  centre  of  a 
landscape  is  the  Virgin  seated  with  the  Child  and 
crowned  by  two  angels;  on  her  right  is  a  Pope  with 
priests  kneeling;  on  her  left  the  Emperor  Maximilian  I. 
with  knights;  various  members  of  the  German  Company 
are  also  kneeling;  all  are  being  crowned  with  garlands 
of  roses  by  the  Virgin,  the  Child,  S.  Dominick — who 
stands  behind  the  Virgin — and  by  angels.  The  painter 
and  his  friend  Pirckheimer  are  seen  standing  in  the 

217 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


German  background  on  the  right;  the  painter  holds  a  tablet  with 
Schools  the  inscription,  "Albertus  Durer  Germanus,  MDVI." 
This  picture,  which  is  one  of  his  largest  and  finest,  was 
purchased  from  the  church  at  a  high  price  by  the 
Emperor  Rudolph  II.  for  his  gallery  at  Prague,  where 
it  remained  until  sold  in  1782  by  the  Emperor  Joseph  II. 
It  then  became  the  property  of  the  Praemonstratensian 
monastery  of  Stratow  at  Prague,  where  it  still  exists, 
though  in  very  injured  condition  and  greatly  over- 
painted.  In  the  Imperial  Gallery  at  Vienna  may  be 
seen  an  old  copy  which  conveys  a  better  idea  of  the 
picture  than  the  original. 

With  these  productions  begins  the  zenith  of  this 
master's  fame,  in  which  a  great  number  of  works  follow 
one  another  within  a  short  period.  Of  these  we  first 
notice  a  picture  of  1508,  in  the  Imperial  Gallery  at 
Vienna,  painted  for  Duke  Frederick  of  Saxony,  and 
which  afterwards  adorned  the  gallery  of  the  Emperor 
Rudolph  II.  It  represents  The  Martyrdom  of  the  Ten 
Thousand  Saints.  In  the  centre  of  the  picture  stand 
the  master  and  his  friend  Pirckheimer  as  spectators, 
both  in  black  dresses.  Durer  has  a  mantle  thrown  over 
his  shoulder  in  the  Italian  fashion,  and  stands  in  a  firm 
attitude.  He  folds  his  hands  and  holds  a  small  flag,  on 
which  is  inscribed,  "Iste  faciebat  anno  domini  1508 
Albertus  Durer  Alemanus."  There  are  a  multitude  of 
single  groups  exhibiting  every  species  of  martyrdom, 
but  there  is  a  want  of  general  connection  of  the  whole. 
The  scenes  in  the  background,  where  the  Christians  are 
led  naked  up  the  rocks,  and  are  precipitated  down 
from  the  top,  are  particularly  excellent.  The  whole  is 
very  minute  and  miniature-like;  the  colouring  is  beauti- 
fully brilliant,  and  it  is  painted  (the  accessories  par- 
ticularly) with  extraordinary  care. 

218 


German  Schools 

To  151 1  belongs  also  one  of  his  most  celebrated  German 
pictures,  The  Adoration  of  the  Trinity,  which  is  also  Schools 
at  Vienna,  painted  for  the  chapel  of  the  Landauer 
Bruderhaus  in  Nuremberg.  Above  in  the  centre  of  the 
picture  are  seen  the  First  Person,  who  holds  the  Saviour 
in  his  arms,  while  the  Holy  Spirit  is  seen  above ;  some 
angels  spread  out  the  priestly  mantle  of  the  Almighty, 
whilst  others  hover  near  with  the  instrumentsof  Christ's 
passion.  On  the  left  hand  a  little  lower  down  is  a  choir 
of  females  with  the  Virgin  at  their  head  ;  on  the  right 
are  the  male  saints  with  St  John  the  Baptist.  Below  all 
these  kneel  a  host  of  the  blessed  of  all  ranks  and  nations 
extending  over  the  whole  of  this  part  of  the  picture. 
Underneath  the  whole  is  a  beautiful  landscape,  and  in  a 
corner  of  the  picture  the  artist  himself  richly  clothed  in 
a  fur  mantle,  with  a  tablet  next  him  with  the  words, 
"Albertus  Durer  Noricus  faciebat  anno  a  Virginis 
partu,  151 1."  It  may  be  assumed  beyond  doubt  that  he 
held  in  particular  esteem  those  pictures  into  which  he 
introduced  his  own  portrait. 

In  the  Vienna  Gallery  is  also  a  picture  of  the  year 
1 51 2,  the  Virgin  holding  the  naked  Child  in  her  arms. 
She  has  a  veil  over  her  head  and  blue  drapery.  Her  face 
is  of  the  form  usual  with  Albert  Durer,  but  of  a  soft  and 
maidenly  character ;  the  Child  is  beautiful — the  coun- 
tenance particularly  so.  It  is  painted  with  exceeding 
delicacy  of  finish. 

Two  altar-pieces  of  his  earliest  period  must  be  men- 
tioned. One  is  in  the  Dresden  Gallery,  consisting  of 
three  pictures  painted  in  tempera  on  canvas,  represent- 
ing the  Virgin,  S.  Anthony,  and  S.  Sebastian  respec- 
tively. Although  this  is  probably  one  of  his  very 
earliest  works,  it  is  remarkable  for  the  novelty  of  its 
treatment  and  its  independence  of  tradition. 

219 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


German  The  other,  a  little  later,  is  in  the  Munich  Gallery 
Schools  (Nos.  240-3),  painted  at  the  request  of  the  Paiimgartner 
family,  for  S.  Catherine's  Church  at  Nuremberg,  was 
brought  to  Munich  in  161 2  by  Maximilian  I.  The 
subject  of  the  middle  picture  is  the  Nativity ;  the  Child 
is  in  the  centre,  surrounded  by  little  angels,  whilst  the 
Virgin  and  Joseph  kneel  at  the  side.  The  wings  contain 
portraits  of  the  two  donors  under  the  form  of  S.  George 
and  S.  Eustace  represented  as  knights  in  steel  armour, 
each  with  his  standard,  and  the  former  holding  the  slain 
dragon. 

The  year  1526  was  distinguished  by  the  two  pictures 
of  the  four  Apostles  :  John  and  Peter,  Mark  and  Paul ; 
the  figures  are  the  size  of  life.  These,  which  are  the 
master's  grandest  work,  and  the  last  of  importance 
executed  by  him,  are  now  in  the  Munich  Gallery.  We 
know  with  certainty  that  they  were  presented  by  Albert 
Diirer  himself  to  the  council  of  his  native  city  in  remem- 
brance of  his  career  as  an  artist,  and  at  the  same  time 
as  conveyingtohis  fellow-citizens  an  earnest  and  lasting 
exhortation  suited  to  that  stormy  period.  In  the  year 
1627,  however,  the  pictures  were  allowed  to  pass  into 
the  hands  of  the  Elector  Maximilian  I.  of  Bavaria.  The 
inscriptions  selected  by  the  painter  himself  might  have 
given  offence  to  a  Catholic  prince,  and  were  therefore  cut 
off  and  joined  to  the  copies  by  John  Fischer,  which  were 
intended  to  indemnify  the  city  of  Nuremberg  for  the 
loss  of  the  originals.  These  copies  are  still  in  the  collec- 
tion of  the  Landauer  Briiderhaus  at  Nuremberg. 

These  pictures  are  the  fruit  of  the  deepest  thought 
which  then  stirred  the  mind  of  Albert  Diirer,  and  are 
executed  with  overpowering  force.  Finished  as  they  are, 
they  form  the  first  complete  work  of  art  produced  by 
Protestantism.    As    the   inscription    taken    from   the 

220 


German  Schools 

Gospels  and  Epistles  of  the  Apostles  contains  press-  German 
ing  warnings  not  to  swerve  from  the  word  of  God,  nor  Schools 
to  believe  in  the  doctrines  of  false  prophets,  so  the 
figures  themselves  represent  the  steadfast  and  faithful 
guardians  of  that  holy  Scripture  which  they  bear  in  their 
hands.  There  is  also  an  old  tradition,  handed  down 
from  the  master's  own  times,  that  these  figures  re- 
present the  four  temperaments.  This  is  confirmed  by 
the  pictures  themselves;  and  though  at  first  sight  it 
may  appear  to  rest  on  a  mere  accidental  combination,  it 
serves  to  carry  out  more  completely  the  artist's  thought, 
and  gives  to  the  figures  greater  individuality.  It  shows 
how  every  quality  of  the  human  mind  may  be  called 
into  the  service  of  the  Divine  Word.  Thus  in  the  first 
picture,  we  see  the  whole  force  of  the  mind  absorbed  in 
contemplation,  and  we  are  taught  that  true  watchful- 
ness in  behalf  of  the  Scripture  must  begin  by  devotion 
to  its  study. 

S.  John  stands  in  front,  the  open  book  in  his  hand; 
his  high  forehead  and  his  whole  countenance  bear  the 
impress  of  earnest  and  deep  thought.  This  is  the 
melancholic  temperament,  which  does  not  shrink  from 
the  most  profound  inquiry.  Behind  him  S.  Peter  bends 
over  the  book,  and  gazes  earnestly  at  its  contents — a 
hoary  head,  full  of  meditative  repose.  This  figure  re- 
presents the  phlegmatic  temperament,  which  reviews 
its  own  thoughts  in  tranquil  reflection.  The  second 
picture  shows  the  outward  operation  of  the  conviction 
thus  attained  and  its  relation  to  daily  life.  S.  Mark  in 
the  background  is  the  man  of  sanguine  temperament;  he 
looks  boldly  round,  and  appears  to  speak  to  his  hearers 
with  animation,  earnestly  urging  them  to  share  those 
advantages  which  he  has  himself  derived  from  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  S.  Paul,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  foreground, 

221 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


German  holds  the  book  and  sword  in  his  hands;  he  looks  angrily 

Schools  and  severely  over  his  shoulder,  ready  to  defend  the 

Word,  and  to  annihilate  the  blasphemer  with  the  sword 

of  God's  power.  He  is  the  representative  of  the  choleric 

temperament. 

We  know  of  no  important  work  of  a  later  date  than 
that  just  described.  His  portrait  in  a  woodcut  of  the 
year  1527  represents  him  earnest  and  serious  in  de- 
meanour, as  would  naturally  follow  from  his  advancing 
age  and  the  pressure  of  eventful  times.  His  head  is  no 
longer  adorned  with  those  richly  flowing  locks,  on  which 
in  his  earlier  days  he  had  set  so  high  a  value,  as  we  learn 
from  his  pictures  and  from  jests  still  recorded  of  him. 
With  the  departure  of  Hans  Holbein  to  England  in 
1528  and  the  death  of  Albert  Diirer  in  the  same  year, 
that  excellence  to  which  they  had  raised  German  art 
passed  away,  and  centuries  saw  no  sign  of  its  revival. 

Of  Hans  Holbein,  born  at  Augsburg  in  1498,  we 
shall  have  more  to  say  in  a  later  chapter,  when  consider- 
ing the  origins  of  English  portraiture.  But  as  in  the 
case  of  Van  Dyck,  and  in  fact  of  every  great  portrait 
painter,  his  excellence  in  this  particular  branch  of  his 
art  was  but  one  result  of  his  being  a  born  artist  and  first 
exercising  his  talents  in  a  much  wider  field.  In  Holbein 
the  realistic  tendency  of  the  German  School  attained  its 
highest  development,  and  he  may,  next  to  Diirer,  be 
pronounced  the  greatest  master  in  it.  While  Diirer's  art 
exhibits  a  close  affinity  with  the  religious  ideas  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  Holbein  appears  to  have  been  imbued  with 
more  modern  and  more  material  sentiments,  and  accord- 
ingly we  find  him  excelling  Diirer  in  closeness  and 
delicacy  of  observation  in  the  delineation  of  nature.  A 
proof  of  this  is  afforded  by  the  evidence  of  Erasmus, 
who  said  that  as  regards  the  portraits  painted  of  him  by 

222 


German  Schools 

both  these  artists,  that  by  Holbein  was  the  most  like.  In  German 
feeling  for  beauty  of  form,  also  in  grace  of  movement,  Schools 
in  colouring,  and  in  the  actual  art  of  painting — in  which 
his  father  had  thoroughly  instructed  him — Holbein  is 
to  be  placed  above  Diirer.  That  he  did  not  rival  the 
great  Italians  of  his  time  in  "  historical "  painting  can 
only  be  ascribed  to  the  circumstances  of  his  life  in 
Germany,  where  such  subjects  were  not  in  fashion. 

Of  his  pictures  executed  before  he  left  his  native 
country  the  greater  number  are  at  Basle  and  Augsburg, 
and  are  therefore  less  familiar  to  the  general  public  than 
his  later  works.  A  notable  exception  is  the  famous  Meyer 
Madonna,  the  original  of  which  is  at  Darmstadt,  but 
a  version  now  relegated,  somewhat  harshly,  to  the 
"copyist "  is  in  the  Dresden  Gallery,  and  certainly  ex- 
hibits as  much  of  the  spirit  of  the  master  as  will  serve 
for  an  example  of  his  powers.  It  represents  the  Virgin 
as  Queen  of  Heaven,  standing  in  a  niche,  with  the  Child 
in  her  arms,  and  with  the  family  of  the  Burgomaster 
Jacob  Meyer  of  Basle  kneeling  on  either  side  of  her. 
With  the  utmost  life  and  truth  to  nature,  which  brings 
these  kneeling  figures  actually  into  our  presence,  says 
Kugler,  there  is  combined  in  a  most  exquisite  degree 
an  expression  of  great  earnestness,  as  if  the  mind  were 
fixed  on  some  lofty  object.  This  is  shown  not  merely  by 
the  introduction  of  divine  beings  into  the  circle  of 
human  sympathies,  but  particularly  in  the  relation  so 
skilfully  indicated  between  the  Holy  Virgin  and  her 
worshippers,  and  in  her  manifest  desire  to  communicate 
to  those  who  are  around  her  the  sacred  peace  and 
tranquillity  expressed  in  her  own  countenance  and 
attitude,  and  implied  in  the  infantine  grace  of  the 
Saviour.  In  the  direct  union  of  the  divine  with  the 
human,  and  in  their  reciprocal  harmony,  there  is  in- 

223 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


German  volved  a  devout  and  earnest  purity  of  feeling  such  as 
Schools  only  the  older  masters  were  capable  of  representing. 

Another  of  his  most  beautiful  pictures  painted  in 
Germany  is  the  portrait  of  Erasmus,  dated  1523.  This 
was  sent  by  Erasmus  to  Sir  Thomas  More,  at  Chelsea, 
with  a  letter  recommending  Holbein  to  his  care,  and  as 
it  is  still  in  this  country — in  the  collection  of  the  Earl  of 
Radnor  at  Longford  Castle — it  is  not  perhaps  too  much 
to  hope  that  it  may  one  of  these  days  find  its  way  into 
the  National  Gallery — perhaps  when  the  alterations  to 
the  front  entrance  are  completed.  This  picture  has  for  a 
very  long  time  been  regarded  as  one  of  Holbein's  very 
finest  portraits.  Mr  W.  Barclay  Squire,  in  the  sump- 
tuouscatalogueoftheRadnorcollectioncompiledbyhim, 
quotes  the  opinion  of  Sir  William  Musgrave,  written 
in  1785,  "  I  am  not  sure  whether  it  is  not  the  finest  I 
have  seen";  and  that  of  Dr  Waagen,  "Alone  worth  a 
pilgrimage  to  Longford.  Seldom  has  a  painter  so  fully 
succeeded  in  bringing  to  view  the  whole  character  of  so 
original  a  mind  as  in  this  instance.  In  the  mouth  and 
small  eyes  may  be  seen  the  unspeakable  studies  of  a 
long  life  .  .  .  the  face  also  expresses  the  sagacity  and 
knowledge  of  a  life  gained  by  long  experience  .  .  .  the 
masterly  and  careful  execution  extends  to  every  portion 
.  .  .  yet  the  face  surpasses  everything  else  in  delicacy  of 
modelling." 

Cruel,  indeed,  was  England  to  have  transplanted 
the  one  artist  who  might  have  saved  Germany  from  the 
artistic  destitution  from  which  she  has  suffered  ever 
since  I 


224 


PLATE  XXXIII.— HANS  HOLBEIN 
PORTRAIT  OF  CHRISTINA,  DUCHESS  OF  MILAN 

National  Gallery,  London 


FRENCH  SCHOOL 


THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

When  we  consider  the  peculiar  beauty  of  the  architec-  The  Seven- 
ture  and  ecclesiastical  sculpture  in  France  during  the  teenth 
Middle  Ages  and  the  period  of  the  renaissance,  and  of  Century 
the  enamels,  ivories,  and  other  small  works  of  art,  it  is 
wrong  to  regret  that  painting  was  not  also  practised  by 
the  French  as  assiduously  as  it  was  in  Italy.  For  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  in  being  confined  to  one  channel 
the  artistic  impulses  of  a  people  cut  deeper  than  if  dis- 
sipated in  various  directions.  We  may  suppose,  indeed, 
that  if  those  of  the  French  had  found  their  outlet  in 
painting  alone,  we  should  have  pictures  of  wonderful 
beauty,  of  a  beauty  moreover  of  a  markedly  different 
kind  from  that  of  the  Italian  or  Spanish  or  Nether- 
landish pictures.  But  on  the  other  hand  we  should  have 
perhaps  lost  theamazingfascinationof  Chartres,  and  the 
delights  of  Limoges  enamel  and  ivories. 

As  it  happens,  the  earliest  mention  to  be  made  of 
painting  in  France  is  the  arrival  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci 
at  Amboise  in  1516,  whither  he  had  come  from  Milan 
in  the  train  of  the  young  king  Francois  I.  Unfortunately 
he  was  by  this  time  sixty-four  years  old,  and  in  less  than 
three  years  he  died.  At  about  the  same  time  there  was 
a  court  painter  in  the  employment  of  Francois — under 
p  225 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


7 be  Seven-  the  official  designation  of  varlet  de  chambre — named 
teenth  JehanClouet,  who  is  supposed  to  have  been  of  Flemish 
Century  extraction.  Nothing  very  definite  is  known  about  him  or 
his  work,  but  he  had  a  son  Francois  Clouet,  who  seems 
to  have  been  born  at  about  thetime  of  Leonardo'sarrival, 
and  who  succeded  to  his  father's  office.  At  the  funeral  of 
Francois  Lin i547hewasorderedtomakean^r^^/^/^ 
feu  roy,  and  he  continued  to  be  the  official  court  painter 
to  Henri  II.  (whose  posthumous  portrait  he  was  also 
ordered  to  paint),  Francois  II.,  andCharles  IX.  Hedied 
in  1572.  Every  portrait  of  this  period  is  attributed  to 
him,  just  as  was  the  case  with  Holbein  in  England. 
Neither  of  the  two  examples  at  the  National  Gallery 
can  be  safely  ascribed  to  him.  The  little  head  of  the 
Emperor  Charles  V.,  king  of  Spain,  at  Hereford  House, 
is  identical  in  style  and  in  dimensions  with  that  of 
Francis  I.,  king  of  France,  in  the  Museum  at  Lyons, 
which  is  attributed  to  Jean  Clouet.  Both  may  have  been 
painted  when  Charles  V.  passed  through  Paris  in  1539, 
but  whether  by  Jean  or  one  of  his  disciples  cannot  be 
said  with  certainty. 

Not  until  the  very  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  were 
born  Claude  Gelle'e  and  Nicholas  Poussin,  the  only  two 
Frenchmen  who  were  painters  of  considerable  import- 
ance before  the  close  of  the  seventeenth.  Nor  did  either 
of  these  two  contribute  anything  to  the  glory  of  their 
country  by  practice  or  by  precept  within  its  confines, 
both  of  them  passing  most  of  their  lives  and  painting 
their  best  works  in  Italy  and  under  Italian  influence. 

Nicholas  Poussin  was  born  at  Villiers  near  Les 
Andelys  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  in  1594,  where  he 
studied  for  some  time  under  Quentin  Varin  till  he  was 
eighteen.  After  this  he  was  in  Paris,  but  in  1624  he  went 
to  Rome  where  he  lived  with  Du  Quesnoy.  His  first 

226 


French  School 

success  was  obtained  by  the  execution  of  two  historical  The  Seven- 
pieces  which  were  commissioned  by  Cardinal  Barberini  teenth 
on  his  return  from  an  Embassy  to  France.  These  were  Century 
The  Death  o/Germanicusdind  The  Capture  of  Jerusalem. 
His  next  works  were  The  Martyrdom  of  S.  Erasmus, 
The  Plague  at  Ashdod,  of  which  a  replica  is  in  the 
National  Gallery,  and  The  Seven  Sacraments  now  at 
BelvoirCastle.  By thesehe acquiredsuchfamethatonhis 
return  to  Paris  in  1640,  Louis  XIII.  appointed  him  royal 
painter,  and  in  order  to  keep  him  at  home  provided  him 
with  apartments  in  the  Tuileries  and  a  salary  of  ^120  a 
year.  Within  two  years,  however,  Poussin  was  back  in 
Rome,  and  after  twenty-three  years'  unbroken  success 
died  there  in  1665  in  his  seventy-second  year. 

Poussin  was  a  most  conscientious  painter,  devoting 
himself  seriously  in  his  earlier  years  to  the  study  both 
of  the  antique  and  of  practical  anatomy.  Besides  being 
the  intimate  friend  of  Du  Quesnoy,  he  was  a  devout 
pupil  of  Domenichino,  for  whom  he  had  the  greatest 
reverence.  It  is  not  surprising  therefore  to  find  in  his 
earlier  works,  such  as  the  Plague  at  Ashdod,  a  certain 
academic  dulness  and  lack  of  spontaneity.  He  was  not 
the  forerunner  of  a  new  epoch,  but  one  of  the  last  up- 
holders of  the  old.  He  was  trying  to  arrest  decay,  to  in- 
fuse a  healthier  spirit  into  a  declining  art,  so  that  he 
errs  on  the  side  of  correctness.  The  influence  of  Titian, 
however,  was  too  strong  for  him  to  remain  long  within 
the  narrowest  limits,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  Baccha- 
nalian Dance,  No.  62  in  the  National  Gallery,  which 
was  probably  one  of  a  series  painted  for  Cardinal 
Richelieu  during  the  short  time  that  Poussin  was  in 
Paris  in  1 64 1.  In  this  and  in  No.  42,  the  Bacchanalian 
Festivals  well  as  in  The  Shepherds  in  Arcadia,  in  the 
Louvre,  we  get  a  surprisingly  strong  reminiscence  of 

227 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Seven- Titian,  more  especially  in  the  brown  tones  of  the  flesh 
teenth  and  the  deep  blue  of  the  sky. 
Century  As  the  result  of  conscientious  study  of  the  human 
body  the  figures  in  these  pictures  are  full  of  life — for 
correctness  of  drawing  is  the  first  requisite  of  lively 
painting  without  which  all  the  others  are  useless.  The 
fact  that  over  two  hundred  prints  have  been  engraved 
after  his  pictures  is  a  proof  of  his  popularity  at  one  time 
or  another,  and  though  at  the  present  time  his  reputa- 
tion is  not  as  widely  recognised  as  in  former  years,  it  is 
certainly  as  high  among  those  whose  judgment  is  inde- 
pendent of  passing  fashions.  As  evidence  of  the  sound- 
ness of  his  principles,  the  following  is  perhaps  worth 
quoting: — 

"There  are  nine  things  in  painting,"  Poussin  wrote 
in  a  letter  to  M.  de  Chambrai,  the  author  of  a  treatise  on 
painting,  "which  can  never  be  taught  and  which  are 
essential  to  that  art.  To  begin  with,  the  subject  of  it 
should  be  noble,  and  receive  no  quality  from  the  person 
who  treats  it;  and  to  give  opportunity  to  the  painter  to 
show  his  talents  and  his  industry  it  must  be  chosen  as 
capable  of  receiving  the  most  excellent  form.  A  painter 
should  begin  with  disposition  (or  as  we  should  say, 
composition),  the  ornament  should  follow,  their  agree- 
ment of  the  parts,  beauty,  grace,  spirit,  costume,  regard 
to  nature  and  probability;  and  above  all,  judgment. 
This  last  must  be  in  the  painter  himself  and  cannot  be 
taught.  It  is  the  golden  bough  of  Virgil  that  no  one 
can  either  find  or  pluck  unless  his  lucky  star  conducts 
him  to  it." 

Gaspar  Poussin,  whose  name  was  really  Gaspard 
Dughet,  was  brother-in-law  of  Nicholas,  and  acquired 
his  name  from  being  his  pupil.  He  was  nineteen  years 
his  junior,  and  survived  him  by  ten  years.  He  was  born 

228 


French  School 

in  Rome  of  French  parents,  and  died  there  in  1675,  and  7  he  Seven- 
though  he  travelled  a  good  deal  in  Italy  he  never  appears  teenth 
to  have  visited  France.   His  Italian  landscapes  are  very  Century 
beautiful,  and  we  are  fortunate  in  the  possession  of  one 
which  is  considered  his  best,  No.  31  in  the  National 
Gallery,  Landscape  with  Figures,  Abraham  and  Isaac, 
Scarcely  less  fine  is  the  Calling  of  Abraham,  No.  1 159, 
especially  in  the  middle  and  far  distance.  The  sacred 
figures,  it  may  as  well  be  said,  are  of  little  concern  in 
the  compositions,  though  useful  for  purposes  of  identi- 
fying the  pictures. 

Claude  Gellee,  nowadays  usually  spoken  of  as 
Claude,  was  born  at  Chamagne  in  Lorraine  in  1600. 
Accordingly  he  has  been  styled  Claude  Lorraine,  le 
Lorraine,  de  Lorrain,  Lorrain,  or  Claudio  Lorrenese 
with  wonderful  persistency  through  the  ages,  though 
there  was  no  mystery  about  his  surname  and  it  would 
have  served  just  as  well.  He  was  brought  up  in  his 
father's  profession  of  pastrycook,  and  in  that  capacity 
he  went  to  Rome  seeking  for  employment.  As  it  hap- 
pened he  found  it  in  the  house  of  a  landscape  painter, 
Agostino  Tassi,  who  had  been  a  pupil  of  Paul  Bril,  and 
he  not  only  cooked  for  him  but  mixed  his  colours  as 
well,  and  soon  became  his  pupil.  Later  he  was  studying 
under  a  German  painter,  Gottfried  Wals,  at  Naples.  A 
more  important  influence  on  him,  however,  was  that  of 
Joachim  Sandrart,  one  of  the  best  of  the  later  German 
painters,  whom  he  met  in  Rome. 

Claude's  earliest  pictures  of  any  importance  were 
two  which  were  painted  for  Pope  Urban  VII.  in  1639, 
when  he  was  just  upon  forty  years  old.  These  are  the 
Village  Dance  and  the  Seaport,  now  in  the  Louvre. 
The  Seaport  at  Sunset  and  Narcissus  and  Echo  in  the 
National  Gallery  (Nos.  5  and  19)  are  dated  1644 — the 

22Q 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


7 be  Seven-  former  on  the  canvas  and  the  latter  on  the  sketch  for 
teenth  it  in  the  Liber  Veritatis,  where  it  is  stated  that  it  was 
Century  painted  for  an  English  patron. 

The  Liber  Veritatis,  it  should  be  observed,  is  the 
title  given  to  a  portfolio  of  over  two  hundred  drawings 
in  pen  and  bistre,  or  Indian  ink,  which  is  now  in  the 
possession  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire.  Most  of  these 
were  made  from  pictures  which  had  been  painted,  not  as 
sketches  or  designs  preparatory  to  painting  them,  and 
in  some  instances  there  are  notes  on  the  back  of  them 
giving  the  date,  purchaser,  and  other  particulars  re- 
lating to  them.  So  great  was  the  vogue  for  Claude's 
landscapes  in  England  during  the  eighteenth  century 
that  as  early  as  1730  or  1740  a  good  many  of  his  draw- 
ings, which  had  been  collected  by  Jonathan  Richardson, 
Dr.  Mead  and  others,  were  engraved  by  Arthur  Pond 
and  John  Knapton  ;  and  in  1777  a  series  of  about  two 
hundred  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  drawings  was 
published  by  Alderman  Boydell,  which  had  been  etched 
and  mezzotinted  by  Richard  Earlom,  under  the  title 
of  Liber  Veritatis.  This  was  the  model  on  which 
Turner  founded  the  publication  of  his  own  sketches 
under  the  title  of  Liber  Studiorum.  Thus,  if  Claude 
exerted  little  influence  on  the  art  of  his  own  country,  it 
can  hardly  be  said  that  he  exerted  none  elsewhere,  for 
Turner  was  by  no  means  the  first  Englishman  to  fall 
under  his  spell.  Richard  Wilson,  the  first  English  land- 
scape painter,  was  undoubtedly  influenced  by  him,  both 
from  an  acquaintance  with  his  drawings  in  English  col- 
lections and  from  the  study  of  his  works  when  in  Rome. 

In  this  connection  we  may  consider  the  two  land- 
scapes, numbered  12  and  14  in  the  National  Gallery 
Catalogue,  as  our  most  important  examples  by  this 
master,  for  Turner  bequeathed  to  the  nation  his  two 

230 


French  School 

most  important  pictures  The  Sun  Rising  Through  a  The  Seven- 
Vapour 'and  Dido  Building  Carthage, on  condition  that  teentb 
they  should  be  hung  between  these  two  by  Claude.  The  Century 
Court  of  Chancery  could  annul  the  condition,  but  they 
could  not  nullify  the  effect  of  Claude's  influence  on 
Turner  or  alter  the  judgment  of  posterity  with  regard 
to  the  relations  of  the  two  painters  to  each  other  and 
to  art  in  general,  and  the  Director  has  wisely  observed 
the  wishes  of  Turner  in  still  hanging  the  four  pictures 
together,  the  Court  of  Chancery  notwithstanding.  Both 
of  Claude's  are  inscribed,  besides  being  signed  and 
dated,  as  follows : 

No.  12.  Manage  dTsaac  avec  Rebeca,  Claudio  Gil. 

inv.  Romae  1648. 
No.  14.  La  Reine  de   Saba  va  trover  Salomon. 

Clavde  Gil.  inv.  faict  pour  son  altesse  le  due  de 

Buillon  a  Roma  1648. 
Both  pictures  are  familiar  in  various  engravings  of 
them, and  though  the  present  fashion  leads  many  people 
in  other  directions,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
appreciation  of  Claude  in  this  country  is  never  likely 
to  die  out,  and  is  only  waiting  for  a  turn  of  the  wheel 
to  revive  with  increased  vigour. 

Meantime,  however,  France  was  not  entirely  desti- 
tute of  painters,  and  though  without  Claude,  Poussin 
or  Dughet,  who  preferred  to  exercise  their  art  in  Rome, 
she  anticipated  England  by  over  a  century  in  that  most 
important  step,  the  foundation  of  an  Academy  of  Paint- 
ing. Not  many  of  the  names  of  its  original  members 
ever  became  famous — as  may  be  said  in  our  own 
country — but  among  them  was  Sebastien  Bourdon 
(1616-1671),  whose  work  was  so  much  admired  by  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds.  Bourdon,  also,  wandered  away  from 
France  ;  within  four  years  after  the  foundation  of  the 

231 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

7 be  Seven-  Academy,  namely,  in  1652,  he  went  to  Stockholm,  and 
teentbW3iS  appointed  principal  painter  to  Queen  Christina. 
Century  Qn  ner  abdication,  however,  in  1663,  he  returned  to 
Paris,  and  enjoyed  a  great  success  in  painting  land- 
scapes, and  historical  subjects.  The  Return  of  the  Ark 
from  Captivity,  No.  64  in  the  National  Gallery  Cata- 
logue, was  presented  by  that  distinguished  patron  of 
the  arts,  Sir  George  Beaumont,  to  whom  it  was  be- 
queathed by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  as  being  one  of  his 
most  treasured  possessions.  "  I  cannot  quit  this  sub- 
ject," he  writes  in  the  fourteenth  Discourse,  alluding 
to  poetry  in  landscape,  "  without  mentioning  two  ex- 
amples, which  occur  to  me  at  present,  in  which  the 
poetical  style  of  landscape  may  be  seen  happily  ex- 
ecuted ;  the  one  is  Jacob's  Dream,  by  Salvator  Rosa, 
and  the  other,  The  Return  of  the  Ark  from  Captivity, 
by  Sebastian  Bourdon.  With  whatever  dignity  those 
histories  are  presented  to  us  in  the  language  of  scrip- 
ture, this  style  of  painting  possesses  the  same  power 
of  inspiring  sentiments  of  grandeur  and  sublimity,  and 
is  able  to  communicate  them  to  subjects  which  appear 
by  no  means  adapted  to  receive  them.  A  ladder  against 
the  sky  has  no  very  promising  appearance  of  possess- 
ing a  capacity  to  excite  any  heroic  ideas,  and  the  Ark 
in  the  hands  of  a  second-rate  master  would  have  little 
more  effect  than  a  common  waggon  on  the  highway ; 
yet  those  subjects  are  so  poetically  treated  throughout, 
the  parts  have  such  a  correspondence  with  each  other, 
and  the  whole  and  every  part  of  the  scene  is  so  visionary, 
that  it  is  impossible  to  look  at  them  without  feeling  in 
some  measure  the  enthusiasm  which  seems  to  have  in- 
spired the  painters." 

Eustache  le  Sueur,  born  in  the  same  year  as 
Sebastien  Bourdon  (161 6),  was  another  of  the  original 

232 


French  School 

members  of  the  Academy,  and  was  employed  by  the  7  he  Seven- 
King  at  the  Louvre.  His  most  famous  work  was  th&teedtb 
decorations  of  the  cloister  at  the  monastery  of  l^di^entury 
Chartreuse  (now  in  the  Louvre)  of  which  Horace  Wal- 
pole  speaks  so  ecstatically  in  the  preface  to  the  last 
volume  of  the  Anecdotes  of  Painting.  "  The  last  scene 
of  S.  Bruno  expiring"  (he  writes)  "in  which  are  ex- 
pressed all  the  stages  of  devotion  from  the  youngest 
mind  impressed  with  fear  to  the  composed  resignation 
of  the  Prior,  is  perhaps  inferior  to  no  single  picture  of 
the  greatest  master.  If  Raphael  died  young,  so  did 
Le  Sueur ;  the  former  had  seen  the  antique,  the  latter 
only  prints  from  Raphael ;  yet  in  the  Chartreuse,  what 
airs  of  heads  I  What  harmony  of  colouring  !  What 
aerial  perspective !  How  Grecian  the  simplicity  of 
architecture  and  drapery  I  How  diversified  a  single 
quadrangle  though  the  life  of  a  hermit  be  the  only  sub- 
ject, and  devotion  the  only  pathetic  I  " 

Philippe  de  Champaigne  was  another  of  the 
original  members.  He  was  born  at  Brussels  in  1602, 
and  did  not  come  to  Paris  till  1621,  where  he  was  soon 
afterwards  employed  in  the  decoration  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg Palace.  But  he  was  chiefly  a  portrait  painter, 
his  principal  works  being  the  fine  full-length  of  Cardinal 
Richelieu,  and  another  of  his  daughter  as  a  nun  of  Port 
Royal,  both  of  which  are  in  the  Louvre.  There  are 
four  in  the  Wallace  Collection,  but  perhaps  the  most 
familiar  to  the  English  public  is  the  canvas  at  the 
National  Gallery  (No.  798),  painted  for  the  Roman 
sculptor  Mocchi,  to  make  a  bust  from,  with  a  full  face 
and  two  profiles  of  Richelieu.  As  a  portrait  this  is 
exceedingly  interesting,  the  more  so  from  having  an 
inscription  over  one  of  the  heads,  "  de  ces  deux  profiles 
cecy  est  le  meilleur."     The  full  length  of  the  Cardinal 

233 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Seven-  presented  by  Mr.  Charles  Butler  in  1895  (No.  1449),  is 
teenth  a  good  example,  which  cannot  however  but  suffer  by 
Century  juxtaposition  with  more  accomplished  works. 

But  it  was  not  until  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century  that  portrait  painting  in  France  became  any- 
thing like  a  fine  art,  and  even  then  it  did  not  get  beyond 
being  formal  and  magnificent.  The  two  principal 
exponents  were  Hyacinthe  Rigaud  and  Nicolas 
Largilliere,  both  of  whose  works  have  a  sort  of 
grandeur  but  little  subtlety  or  charm. 

Rigaud  was  born  in  1659,  at  Perpignan  in  the  ex- 
treme south  of  France,  and  studied  at  Montpelier  in 
his  youth,  then  at  Lyons  on  his  way  to  Paris — much 
as  a  Scottish  artist  might  have  studied  first  at  Glasgow, 
then  at  Birmingham  on  his  way  to  London.  On  the 
advice  of  Lebrun  he  devoted  himself  specially  to  por- 
trait painting,  which  he  did  with  such  success  that  in 
1700  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Academy.  He 
painted  Louis  xiv.  more  often  than  Largilliere  or  any 
other  painter,  and  in  his  later  years  (he  lived  till  1743) 
Louis  XV.  his  great-grandson.  He  is  said  to  have 
shared  with  Kneller  the  distinction,  such  as  it  may  be, 
of  having  painted  at  least  five  monarchs. 

Rigaud  is  best  known  in  these  days  by  the  fine 
prints  after  his  portraits  by  the  French  engravers.  Of 
his  brushwork  we  are  only  able  to  judge  by  the  two 
doubtful  versions  at  the  National  Gallery  and  the 
Wallace  Collection  respectively,  of  the  fine  portrait  at 
Versailles  of  Cardinal  Fleury.  The  group  of  Lulli 
and  the  Musicians  of  the  French  Court, which  was  pur- 
chased for  the  National  Gallery  in  1906  is  not  by  him, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  understand  why  the  public  money 
should  have  been  wasted  on  it,  or  at  least  on  the  in- 
scription attributing  it  to  him. 

234 


French  School 

Nicolas  de  Largilliere  was  three  years  older  than  The  Seven 
Rigaud  and  survived  him  by  another  three.     He  was  teentb 
born  in  Paris  in  1656  and  died  six  months  before  com-  Century 
pleting  his  ninetieth  year.     Early  in  life  he  went  as  a 
pupil  to  Antwerp,  under  Antoine  Goubeau,  and  he  is 
said  to  have  worked  in  England  as  an  assistant  to  Sir 
Peter  Lely  during  the  later  years  of  that  master.     On 
his  return  to  France  he  was  received  into  the  Royal 
Academy — in  1686. 

In  the  Wallace  Collectien  is  an  interesting  example 
of  his  work,  the  large  group  of  the  French  Royal 
Family,  in  which  four  living  generations  are  portrayed 
and  the  bronze  effigies  of  two  more.  Henri  iv.  and 
Louis  XIII.,  the  grandfather  and  father  of  the  reigning 
monarch,  Louis  XIV.,  the  Dauphin  his  son, the  Due  de 
Bourgogne  his  grandson,  and  the  Due  d'Anjou,  his 
great-grandson — afterwards  Louis  XV.,  are  all  in- 
cluded in  this  formal  group,  which  is  a  useful  lesson  in 
history  as  well  as  in  painting. 


II 

THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Antoine  Watteau  was  born  at  Valenciennes  in  1684, 
and  died  near  there  about  thirty-seven  years  later  of  con- 
sumption. Valenciennes  really  belonged  to  Flanders, 
and  had  only  lately  been  annexed  to  France,  so  that 
Watteau  owed  something  of  his  art  to  Flemish  rather 
than  to  French  sources.  At  the  same  time  it  cannot 
be  said  that  his  development  would  have  been  the  same 
if  he  had  gone  to  Brussels  or  Antwerp  instead  of  to 
Paris  to  study,  for  though  the  works  of  Rubens  and 

235 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


7 he  Van  Dyck  were  from  his  earliest  years  his  chief  attrac- 

Eigbteenth  tion,  the  influence  of  the  French  artist  Claude  Gillot, 

Century  as  we\\  as  that  of  Audran,  the  keeper  of  the  Luxembourg 

Palace,  without  doubt  exerted  a  very  decided  help  in 

determining  the  future  course  of  his  work. 

When  living  with  Audran,  Watteau  had  every  op- 
portunity for  studying  the  works  of  the  older  masters, 
especially  those  of  Rubens,  whose  decorations,  executed 
for  Marie  de  Medici,  had  not  at  that  time  been  removed 
to  the  Louvre.  Besides  copying  from  these  older 
pictures,  Watteau  was  employed  by  Audran  in  the  ex- 
ecution of  designs  for  wall  decorations,  etc. 

Watteau's  two  earliest  pictures  still  in  existence  are 
supposed  to  be  the  Ddpart  de  Troupe  and  the  Halte 
d  Armde,  which  were  the  first  of  a  series  of  military 
pictures  on  a  small  scale.  To  an  early  period  also  be- 
long the  Accordde  de  Village,  at  the  Soane  Museum  in 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  the  Marine  de  Village  at  Potsdam, 
and  the  Wedding  Festivities  in  the  Dublin  National 
Gallery. 

In  17 1 2  other  influences  began  to  work  upon  him. 
In  this  year  he  came  into  contact  with  Crozat,  the 
famous  collector,  in  whose  house  he  became  familiar 
with  a  fresh  batch  of  the  Flemish  and  Italian  master- 
pieces. It  was  at  this  time  that  he  was  approved  by 
the  Royal  Academy,  though  he  took  five  years  over 
his  Diploma  picture,  "  Embarquement  pour  I'  He  de 
Cytkere"  which  is  now  in  the  Louvre.  Meantime  the 
influence  of  Rubens  and  the  Italian  masters — especially 
the  Venetians,  had  greatly  widened  and  deepened  his 
art,  and  these  influences,  acting  on  his  peculiarly  sen- 
sitive temperament  and  poetical  spirit,  had  a  magical 
effect,  transforming  the  actual  scenes  of  Paris  and 
Versailles,  which  he  painted  into  enchanted  places  in 

236 


PLATE  XXXIV.— ANT01NE  WATTEAU 
L'INDIFFERENT 

Louvre,  Paris 


French  School 

fairyland,  as  he  transformed  the  formal  actual  painting  The 
of  the  period  of  Louis  XIV.  into  the  romantic  school  Eighteenth 
of  the  eighteenth  century  in  France.     The  setting  of  Century 
the  famous  pictures  in  the  Wallace  Collection,  cata- 
logued as  The  Music-Party  or  Les  Charnes  de  la  Vie 
(No.  410),  is  a  view  of  the  Champs  Elysdes  taken  from 
the  gallery  of  the  Tuileries.    Who  would  have  thought 
it  ?   And  what  does  it  matter,  except  to  show  how  en- 
tirely Watteau  revolutionized  the  pompous  and  prosaic 
methods  of  his  time  by  investing  the  actual  with  poetry 
and  romance. 

Two  other  pictures  at  Hertford  House,  Nos.  389 
and  391,  were  painted  in  the  Champs  Elysdes,  and  the 
figures  are,  for  the  most  part,  the  same  in  both,  all 
three  of  these  pictures  are  fine  examples  of  the  artist's 
power  of  broad  and  spirited  treatment,  combined  with 
extreme  delicacy  and  refinement  of  conception. 

Three  other  pictures  at  Hertford  House  are  equally 
delightful  examples  of  another  class  of  subject,  namely 
groups  of  figures  dressed  in  the  parts  of  actors  in 
Italian  comedy.  From  a  note  in  the  Catalogue  we 
learn  that  a  company  of  Italian  comedians  were  in 
Paris  in  the  sixteenth  century,  but  were  banished  by 
Louis  Quatorze  in  1697  for  a  supposed  affront  to 
Madame  de  Maintenon.  In  17 16,  however,  they  were 
recalled  by  the  Regent,  the  Due  d'Orleans,  and  became 
once  more  the  delight  of  Paris.  Several  of  the  figures 
in  the  Italian  comedy  had  already  passed  into  French 
popular  drama,  and  in  Watteau's  time  there  seems  to 
have  been  a  fluctuating  company,  according  as  one  actor 
or  actress  or  another  developed  a  part,  and  to  Panta- 
lone,  Arlecchino,  Dottore  and  Columbina  were  now 
added  Pierrot — or  Gilles — Mezetin,  a  sort  of  double 
of  Pierrot,  Scaramouche  and  Scapin.     The  vague  web 

237 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  of  courtship,  dalliance,  intrigue  and  jealousy  called 
Eighteenth  up  by  these  characters  attracted  Watteau  to  employ 
Century  them  in  his  compositions,  and  to  make  them  also  the 
medium  of  the  more  sincere  sentiments  of  conjugal  love 
and  friendship, — as  in  The  Music  Lesson,  Gilles  and  his 
Family  and  Harlequin  and  Columbine,  at  Hertford 
House.  All  of  these  three  were  engraved  in  Watteau's 
life-time  or  shortly  after  his  death,  and  the  verses  sub- 
joined to  the  engravings  are  a  charming  rendering  of 
the  sentiment  underlying  the  pictures. 

In  The  Music  Lesson  we  see  the  half  length  figures 
of  a  lady,  seated,  reading  a  music  book,  and  of  a  man 
playing  a  lute  opposite  to  her.  Another  man  looks  at 
the  book  over  the  lady's  shoulder,  and  two  little  chil- 
dren's faces  appear  at  her  knee.  The  verses  are  as 
follows : — 

Pour  nous  prouver  que  cette  belle 
Trouve  Thy  men  un  noeud  fort  doux 
Le  peintre  nous  la  peint  fidelle 
A  suivre  le  ton  d'un  Epoux. 

Les  enfants  qui  sont  autour  d'elle 
Sont  les  fruits  de  son  tendre  amour 
Dont  ce  beau  joueur  de  prunelle 
Pouvait  bien  gouter  quelque  jour. 

In  Gilles  and  his  Family  we  have  a  three-quarter 
length  full-face  portrait  of  le  Sieur  de  Sirois,  a  friend 
of  Watteau,  with  these  verses  under  the  engraving : — 

Sous  un  habit  de  mezzetin 
Ce  gros  brun  au  riant  visage 
Sur  la  guitarre  avec  sa  main 
Fait  un  aimable  badinage. 

Par  les  doux  accords  de  sa  voix 
Enfants  d'une  bouche  vermeille 
Du  beau  sexe  tant  a  la  fois 
II  charme  les  yeux  et  1'oreille. 
238 


French  School 

In  the  little  Lady  at  her  Toilet  (No.  439)  we  see  The 
the  influence  of  Paul  Veronese,  though  it  is  probable  Eighteenth 
that  this  was  not  painted  until  he  visited  London  in  Century 
the  later  part  of  his  short  life.     For  there  is  a  similar 
piece  called  La  Toilette  du  Matin  which  was  engraved 
by  a  French  artist  who  had  settled  in  England,  Philip 
Merrier,  and  on  whose  work  the  influence  of  Watteau 
is  very  noticeable. 

Le  Rendez-vous  de  Chasse  (No.  416),  which  is  of 
the  same  size,  and  in  character  similar  to  Les  Amuse- 
ments Champitres  (No.  391),  is  the  last  by  Watteau  of 
which  we  have  any  certain  knowledge.  It  was  painted 
in  1720,  the  year  before  his  death,  when  his  health 
prevented  him  from  making  any  sustained  effort.  It 
is  said  to  have  been  a  commission  from  his  friends 
M.  and  Mme.  de  Julienne,  in  whose  shooting-box  at 
Saint  Maur,  between  the  woods  of  Vincennes  and  the 
river,  he  went  to  repose  from  time  to  time. 

Nicholas  LANCRETwas  only bysix  years Watteau's 
junior,  so  that  he  can  hardly  be  considered  as  a  pupil 
or  even  a  disciple,  but  only  as  an  imitator  of  Watteau. 
He  was  the  pupil  of  Claude  Gillot,  and  afterwards  his 
assistant,  and  it  was  not  unnatural  that  a  close  friend- 
ship should  have  been  formed  between  Lancret  and 
Watteau,  or  that  it  should  have  been  dissolved  by  the 
deliberate  imitation  by  the  former  of  the  latter's  style 
— seeing  how  successful  the  imitation  was.  Two  of  the 
pictures  by  Lancret  at  Hertford  House,  Nos.  422,  Con- 
versation Galante  and  440,  Fite  in  a  JVood,  are  fair 
examples  of  how  close,  at  one  period  of  his  career,  the 
imitation  became.  The  latter  is  the  Bat  dans  un 
Bois  which  was  exhibited  at  the  Place  Dauphind,  and 
was  complained  of  by  Watteau  on  account  of  its  close 
resemblance  to  his  own  work. 

239 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Another  in  the  Wallace  Collection  belongs  to  the 
Eighteenth  same  early  period  of  Watteau' s  influence.  The  Italian 
Century  Comedians  by  a  Fountain  (No.  465),  being  attributed 
to  Watteau  in  the  sale,  in  1853,  at  which  it  was  bought 
for  Lord  Hertford.  His  lordship  was  particularly 
anxious  to  secure  this  picture,  "  Between  you  and  /," 
he  writes,  with  the  quaint  regardlessness  of  grammar 
peculiar  to  the  Victorian  nobility,  "  (and  to  no  other 
person  but  you  should  I  make  this  confidence),  I  must 
have  the  Lancret  called  Watteau  in  theStandish  Collec- 
tion. So  I  depend  upon  you  for  getting  it  for  me.  I 
need  not  beg  you  not  to  mention  a  word  about  this  to 
anybody,  either  before  or  after  the  sale."  And  again, 
1 1  depend  upon  your  getting  the  Lancret  (Watteau  in 
the  Catalogue)  for  me.  I  have  no  doubt  it  will  sell  for 
a  good  sum,  most  likely  more  than  it  is  worth,  but  we 
must  have  it.  ...  I  leave  it  to  you,  but  I  must  have  it, 
unless  by  some  unheard  of  chance  it  was  to  go  beyond 
3000  guineas."     He  was  fortunate  indeed  in  getting  it 

for  ^"735- 

Mademoiselle  Camargo  Dancing  (No.  393),  and  La 
Belle  Grecque  (No.  450),  in  the  Wallace  Collection,  are 
good  examples  of  the  Comedian  motive  treated  with 
more  actuality,  yet  with  no  less  grace.  The  four  little 
allegorical  pieces  in  the  National  Gallery,  The  Four 
Ages  of  Man,  are  more  lively  if  less  romantic,  being 
composed  more  for  the  characters  illustrating  the  sub- 
ject than  for  poetical  setting. 

Jean  Baptise  Joseph  Pater  was  actually  a  pupil 
of  Watteau.  He  was  ten  years  his  junior,  but  was 
equally  unhappy  on  account  of  his  health,  and  died  at 
forty.  Like  Lancret,  he  incurred  Watteau' s  displeasure 
for  a  similar  reason,  though  in  his  case  it  was  rather 
the  fear  of  what  he  would  do  than  what  he  did  that  was 

240 


French  School 

the  cause  of  Watteau's  displeasure.    At  the  same  time,  The 

the  names  of  both  Lancret  and  Pater  are  inseparable  Eighteenth 

from  that  of  Watteau  in  the  history  of  painting,  and,  Century 

both  in  their  choice  of  subject  and  their  treatment  of  it, 

they  are  hardly  distinguishable  to  the  casual  observer. 

Watteau,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  was  far  above  the  other 

two,  but  it  was  fortunateindeed  that  his  romantic  genius 

had  two  such  gifted  imitators  as  Lancret  and  Pater — 

or  to  put  it  the  other  way,  that  they  had  such  a  master 

to  imitate,  without  whom  neither  their  work  nor  their 

influence  would  have  been  nearly  as  great  as  it  was. 

Francois  Boucher,  though  doubtless  influenced  by 
Watteau,  more  especially  at  the  outset  of  his  brilliant 
career,  was  nevertheless  independent  of  him  in  carrying 
forward  the  art  painting  in  his  country,  choosing  rather 
to  revert  to  the  patronage  of  the  Court  like  his  prede- 
cessors Le  Brun,  Rigaud,  and  Largilliere  than  to  de- 
vote himself  to  the  expression  of  his  own  ideas  and 
feelings.  Being  a  pupil  of  Francois  Le  Moine,  whose 
principal  work  was  the  decoration  of  Versailles,  it  is  not 
unnatural  that  Boucher  should  have  succumbed  to  the 
influence  of  Royalty,  especially  when  exerted  in  his 
favour  by  as  charming  and  as  powerful  an  agent  as 
Madame  de  Pompadour.  Another  earlyinfluence  which 
shaped  his  artistic  tendencies  as  well  as  his  fortunes 
was  that  of  Carle  van  Loo,in  whose  honour  his  country- 
men coined  the  verb  vanlotiser — to  frivol  agreeably — 
on  account  of  the  popularity  which  he  achieved  as  a 
painter  of  elegant  trifles.  There  is  a  picture  by  Carle 
van  Loo  in  the  Wallace  Collection  entitled  The  Grand 
Turk  giving  a  Concert  to  his  Mistress  (No.45i),painted 
in  1737,  which  is  a  fair  example  of  his  proficiency  in 
this  direction,  and  there  are  one  or  two  portraits  scat- 
tered about  the  country  which  he  painted  when  over 

Q  241 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  here  for  a  few  months  towards  the  end  of  his  life. 
Eighteenth  He  died  in  Paris  on  the  15I1  July  1765,  and  Boucher 
Century  Was  immediately  appointed  his  successor  as  principal 
painter  to  Louis  XV. 

Madame  de  Pompadour  was  more  than  a  patron  to 
him,  she  was  a  matron  !  She  made  an  intimate  friend 
and  adviser  of  him,  and  it  is  to  her  that  he  owed  most  of 
his  advancement  at  Court,  which  continued  after  her 
death.  The  full-length  portrait  of  her  at  Hertford  House 
(No.  418)  was  commissioned  by  her  in  1759,  and  re- 
mained in  her  possession  till  her  death  in  1 764.    It  was 
purchased  by  Lord  Hertford  in  1868  for  28,000  francs. 
In  the  Jones  Collection  at  the  South    Kensington 
Museum  is  another  portrait  of  her,  and  a  third  in  the 
National  Gallery  at  Edinburgh,  not  to  mention  those 
in  private  collections.  The  two  magnificent  cartoons  on 
the  staircase  at  Hertford  House,  called  the  Rising  and 
Setting  of  the  Sun,  she  begged  from  the  king.    These 
were  ordered  in  1748  as  designs  to  be  executed  in  tapes- 
try at  the  Manufacture  Royale  des  Gobelins,  by  Cozette 
and  Audran,  according  to  the  catalogue  of  the  Salon  in 
1 753  when  they  were  exhibited.  They  are  characterised 
by  the  brothers  de  Goncourt  as  le  plus  grand  effort  du 
fteintre,  les  deux  grandes  machines  de  son  ozuvre  ;  and 
the  writer  of  the  catalogue  of  Madame  de  Pompadour's 
pictures  when  they  were  sold  in  1766  testifies  thus  to 
the  artist's  own  opinion  of  them  :  "  J'ai  entendu  plu- 
sieurs  fois  dire  par  l'auteur  qu'ils  e^aient  du  nombre  de 
ceux  dont  il  dtait  le  plus  satisfait."  They  were  then  sold 
for  9800  livres,  and  Lord  Hertford  paid  20,200  francs 
for  them  in  1855. 

Even  without  these  chefs  a" ozuvre  the  Wallace  Col- 
lection is  richer  than  any  other  gallery  in  the  works  of 
Boucher,  with  twenty-four  examples  (in  all),  of  which 

242 


French  School 

few  if  any  are  of  inferior  quality.     But  it  must  be  con-  The 
fessed  that  the  abundance  of  Boucher's  work  does  not  Eighteenth 
enhance  its  artistic  value,  and  we  have  to  think  of  him,  Century 
in  comparison  with  Watteau  and  his  school,  rather  as  a 
great  decorator  than  a  great  painter.    With  all  his  skill 
and  charm,  that  is  to  say,  there  is  not  one  of  his  can- 
vases that  we  could  place  beside  a  picture  by  Watteau 
on  anything  like  equal  terms.    Superficially  it  may  be 
equally  or  possibly  more  attractive,  but  inwardly  there 
is  no  comparison.    Let  us  hear  what  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds has  to  say  of  him  : — 

"Our  neighbours,  the  French,  are  much  in  this 
practice  of  extempore  invention,  and  their  dexterity  is 
such  as  even  to  excite  admiration,  if  not  envy  ;  but  how 
rarely  can  this  praise  be  given  to  their  finished  pictures ! 
The  late  Director  of  their  Academy,  Boucher,  was 
eminent  in  this  way.  When  I  visited  him  some  years 
since  in  France,  I  found  him  at  work  on  a  very  large 
picture  without  drawings  or  models  of  any  kind.  On 
my  remarking  this  particular  circumstance,  he  said, 
when  he  was  young,  studying  his  art,  he  found  it 
necessary  to  use  models,  but  he  had  left  them  off  for 
many  years.  . .  .  However,  in  justice,  I  cannot  quit  this 
painter  without  adding  that  in  the  former  part  of  his 
life,  when  he  was  in  the  habit  of  having  recourse  to 
nature,  he  was  not  without  a  considerable  degree  of 
merit — enough  to  make  half  the  painters  of  his  country 
his  imitators  :  he  had  often  grace  and  beauty,  and  good 
skill  in  composition,  but  I  think  all  under  the  influence 
of  a  bad  taste;  his  imitators  are,  indeed,  abominable." 

Twenty-one  years  elapsed  between  the  birth  of 
Boucher  and  the  next  painter  of  anything  like  his 
ability,  namely,  Jean  Baptiste  Greuze.  He  was 
a  native  of  Tournous,  near  Macon,  and  lived  to  see 

243 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  the  century  out,  dying  in  1805,  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
Eighteenth  eight.  His  popularity  is  nowadays  due  chiefly  to  his 
Century  heads  of  young  girls,  which  he  painted  in  his  later  life 
with  admirable  skill,  but  with  a  sentimentality  that 
almost  repels.  The  famous  example  in  the  National 
Gallery  is  more  free  from  the  sickly  sweetness  that 
spoils  most  of  them,  and  reminds  us  that  he  could  paint 
more  serious  works,  and  paint  them  exceedingly  well. 
He  first  came  into  notice  by  pictures  like  La  Lecture 
du  Bible,  La  Malediction  Paternelle,  or  Le  Fits  Puni, 
which  are  now  to  be  seen — though  generally  passed 
by — at  the  Louvre,  and  his  style  was  imitated  in  later 
years  in  England  by  Wheatley  and  others  of  that  school 
with  more  or  less  success.  It  was  a  great  blow  to  him, 
and  one  which  seriously  affected  his  career  when  the 
Academy  censured  his  Diploma  picture,  The  Emperot 
Severus  reproaching  Caracalla.  But  for  this  we  might 
have  had  more  than  these  sentimental  young  ladies 
from  a  hand  that  was  undoubtedly  worthy  of  better 
things.  However,  as  Lord  Hertford  admired  them 
sufficiently  to  include  no  less  than  twenty-one  of  them 
in  his  collection,  we  ought  not  to  be  severe  in  criticis- 
ing them,  and  we  may  quote  the  description  of  The 
Souvenir  (No.  398)  given  by  John  Smith,  in  his  Cata- 
logue Raisonnd  in  1837,  as  showing  the  esteem  in 
which  it  was  held. 

"The Souvenir.  An  interesting  female,  about  fifteen 
years  of  age,  pressing  fondly  to  her  bosom  a  little  red 
and  white  spaniel  dog ;  the  pet  animal  appears  to  re- 
mind her  of  some  favourite  object,  for  whose  safety  and 
return  she  is  breathing  an  earnest  wish  ;  her  fair  oval 
countenance  and  melting  eyes  are  directed  upwards, 
and  her  ruby  lips  are  slightly  open  ;  her  light  hair  falls 
negligently  on  her  shoulder,  and  is  tastefully  braided 

244 


PLATE  XXXV.— JEAN-BAPTISTE  GREUZE 

THE  BROKEN   PITCHER 
Louvre,  Paris 


French  School 

with  a  crimson  riband  and  pearls.     She  is  attired  in  The 

a  morning  dress,  consisting  of  a  loose  gown  and  a  Eighteenth 

brownish  scarf,  the  latter  of  which  hangs  across  her  Century 

arm.     Upon  a  tree  behind  her  is  inscribed  the  name  of 

the  painter.    This  beautiful  production  of  art  abounds 

in  every  attractive  charm  which  gives  interest  to  the 

master's  works." 

Very  different,  and  far  superior  to  Greuze,  was 
Jean  Honore  Fragonard,  born  atGrasse,in  the  Alpes 
Maritimes,  in  1732.  In  England  his  name  was  almost 
unknown  until  within  quite  recent  years,  and  the 
National  Gallery  has  only  one  picture  by  him,  which  was 
bequeathed  by  George  Salting  in  19 10.  Fortunately 
he  is  well  represented  in  the  Wallace  Collection,  three 
at  least  of  the  nine  examples  being  in  his  most  brilliant 
manner. 

Fragonard's  father  was  a  glover.  In  1 750  the  family 
moved  to  Paris,  and  the  boy  was  put  into  a  notary's 
office.  The  usual  signs  of  disinclination  for  office  work 
and  a  passion  for  art  having  duly  appeared,  he  was  sent 
to  Boucher,  who  advised  him  to  go  and  study  under 
Chardin.  This  he  did  for  a  short  time,  but  finding  it 
dull — for  Chardin  was  not  as  great  a  teacher  as  he  was 
a  painter — he  went  back  to  Boucher  as  an  assistant. 
In  1752  he  won  the  Prix  de  Rome,  although  he  had 
never  attended  the  Academy  Schools,  and  in  1756 
started  for  Italy. 

Reynolds  had  just  returned  from  Rome  at  the  date 
of  Fragonard's  capture  of  the  opportunity  of  going 
there,  and  we  know  from  the  Discourses  how  he  spent 
his  time  there  and  what  direction  his  studies  took. 
Fragonard  pursued  an  exactly  opposite  course,  being 
advised  thereto  by  Boucher,  who  said  to  him,  "  If  you 
take  Michelangelo  and   Raphael  seriously,  you  are 

245 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  lost."  Feeling  that  the  advice  was  suitable  to  himself, 
Eighteenth  if  not  sound  on  general  principles,  Fragonard  devoted 
Century  himself  to  the  lighter  and  more  sparkling  works  of 
Tiepolo  and  others  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries.  He  also  made  a  tour  in  South  Italy  and 
Sicily  with  Hubert  Robert,  the  landscape  painter,  and 
the  Abbe'  Saint  Non,  the  latter  of  whom  published  a 
number  of  etchings  he  made  after  Fragonard's  draw- 
ings, under  the  title  of  Voyages  de  Naples  et  de  Sidle. 
On  returning  to  Paris  in  1761  his  first  success  was 
the  large  composition  of  Callirhod  and  Coresus,  which 
was  exhibited  at  the  Salon  in  1765,  and  is  now  in  the 
Louvre.  But  he  soon  abandoned  the  grand  style, 
chiefly,  it  is  probable,  owing  to  the  patronage  of  the 
idle  or  industrious  rich  who  showered  commissions 
upon  him,  for  smaller  and  more  sociable  pictures  with 
which  to  adorn  and  enliven  their  houses.  The  beauti- 
ful, but  exceedingly  improper  picture  at  Hertford 
House,  called  The  Swing — or  in  French,  Les  Hazards 
heureux  de  r Escarpolette,  appears  to  have  been  com- 
missioned by  the  Baron  de  St.  Julien,  within  the  next 
year  or  two,  for  in  the  memoirs  of  Cott6  a  conversation 
is  recorded  which  shows  that  the  Baron  had  asked  an- 
other painter,  Doyen,  to  paint  it.  "Who  would  have 
believed,"  says  the  indignant  Doyen,  "that within  a  few 
days  of  my  picture  of  Ste.  GenevieVe  being  exhibited 
at  the  Salon,  a  nobleman  would  have  sent  for  me  to 
order  a  picture  on  a  subject  like  this."  He  then  goes 
on  to  relate  how  the  Baron  explained  to  him  exactly 
what  he  required.  We  cannot  entirely  acquit  Fra- 
gonard of  all  blame  in  accepting  such  a  commission, 
but  he  was  a  young  man,  just  starting  as  a  professional 
artist,  with  the  example  of  Boucher  before  him,  and  it 
would  hardly  have  seemed  wise  to  begin  his  career  by 

246 


French  School 

offending  a  noble  patron.    The  whole  incident  throws  The 
a  glaring  light  on  the  conditions  under  which  the  art  Eighteenth 
of  France  flourished  in  the  Louis  Quinze  period,  when  Century 
Boucher  was  everybody  and  Chardin  nobody. 

For  the  real  Fragonard  we  may  turn  to  Le  Chiffre 
(T Amour,  or  the  "  Lady  carving  an  initial,"  as  the 
prosaic  diction  of  the  Wallace  Collection  has  it  (No. 
382).  In  this  the  equal  delicacy  of  the  sentiment  and 
of  the  painting  combine  to  effect  a  little  masterpiece  of 
Louis  Quinze  art.  It  is  simple  and  natural,  and  en- 
tirely free  from  the  besetting  sins  of  so  slight  a  picture 
triviality,  affectation,  empty  prettiness,  or  simply  silli- 
ness. In  its  way  it  is  perfect,  and  for  that  perfection 
is  for  ever  reserved  the  popularity  which  we  find  tem- 
porarily accorded  to  pictures  like  Frith's  Dolly  Varden 
or  Millais'  Bubbles. 

Another  of  the  Hertford  House  examples,  the 
portrait  of  a  Boy  as  Pierrot,  is  equally  entitled  to  be 
popular  for  all  time,  and  like  Reynolds's  Strawberry 
Girl,  might  well  be  called  "one  of  the  half-dozen 
original  things  "  which  no  artist  ever  exceeded  in  his 
life's  work.  A  comparison  between  the  two  pictures, 
which  were  probably  painted  within  a  few  years  of  each 
other,  will  serve  to  show  the  difference  between  the 
English  and  French  Schools  at  this  period.  On  the 
one  hand — to  put  it  very  shortly  indeed — we  see  Fra- 
gonard influenced  by  Tiepolo,  France,  and  Louis  XV. ; 
on  the  other,  Sir  Joshua,  influenced  by  Michelangelo 
and  Raphael,  England,  and  George  III. 

The  mention  of  Jean  Baptiste  Simeon  Chardin 
among  this  brilliant  and  frivolous  galaxy  seems  almost 
out  of  place.  "  He  is  not  so  much  an  eighteenth- 
century  French  artist,"  Lady  Dilke  says  of  him,  "asa 
French  artist  of  pure  race  and  type.  Though  he  treated 

247 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  subjects  of  the  humblest  and  most  unpretentious  class, 
Eighteenth  he  brought  to  their  rendering  not  only  deep  feeling  and 
Century  a  penetration  which  divined  the  innermost  truths  of  the 
simplest  forms  of  life,  but  a  perfection  of  workman- 
ship by  which  everything  he  handled  was  clothed  with 
beauty."  That  the  Wallace  Collection  includes  no  work 
from  his  hand  is  perhaps  regrettable,  but  truly  Chardin 
was  someone  apart  from  all  the  magnificence  that 
dazzles  us  there.    His  was  the  treasure  of  the  humble. 

The  effects  of  the  Revolution  upon  French  painting 
were  as  surprising  as  they  were  great.  That  the  gay 
and  frivolous  art  of  Boucher  and  Fragonard  should 
have  suddenly  ceased  might  have  been  considered  in- 
evitable ;  but  whereas  in  Holland,  when  the  Spanish 
yoke  had  been  thrown  off,  and  a  Republic  proclaimed, 
a  vigorous  democratic  school  arose  under  Frans  Hals; 
and  in  England  during  the  Commonwealth  the  artistic 
influencewhichwas  beginning  to  be  spread  by  Charles  I. 
and  Buckingham  utterly  ceased  ;  in  France  an  artistic 
Dictator  arose,  as  we  may  well  call  him,  in  the  person 
of  Jacques  Louis  David,  who  not  only  made  painting 
a  part  of  the  revolutionary  propaganda,  but  succeeded 
under  the  Emperor  Napoleon  also  in  maintaining  his 
position  as  painter  to  the  Government,  and  thereby  im- 
posing on  his  country  a  style  of  art  which  had  a  great 
influence  on  the  whole  course  of  French  painting  for 
many  years  to  come.  But  the  most  remarkable  thing 
was  that  it  was  to  the  classics  that  this  revolutioniser 
went  for  inspiration.  The  explanation  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  he  was  bitterly  aggrieved  by  the  attitude 
of  the  Academy  to  him  as  a  young  man,  and  in  the 
accident  of  his  famous  picture  of  Brutus  synchronising 
with  the  events  of  1 789.  He  was  at  once  hailed  as  a  de- 
liverer, and  made,  as  it  were,  painter  to  the  Revolution. 

248 


PLATE    XXXVI.— FRAGONARD 
L'ETUDE 

Louvre,  Paris 


French  School 

But  what  was  even  more  important  in  the  influence  The 
he  exerted  at  this  time  was  his  actual  appointment  as  Eighteenth 
President  of  the  Convention,  which  gave  him  the  power  Century 
to  revenge  himself  upon  the  Academy,  which  he  did  by- 
extinguishing  it  in  1793,  and  to  remove  any  incon- 
venient rivals  by  indicting  them  as  aristocrats.  Of  the 
older  painters,  Fragonard  and  Greuze  were  the  only 
important  ones  left,  and  as  they  could  not  under  the 
altered  circumstances  be  considered  as  rivals  to  the 
classical  David,  they  both  saw  the  century  out.  Fra- 
gonard simply  ceased  painting  for  want  of  patrons,  and 
David  was  good  enough  to  procure  him  a  post  in  the 
Museum  des  Arts,  or  he  would  have  starved.  Unfor- 
tunately he  attempted  to  adapt  himself  to  the  new  style, 
and  was  promptly  ejected  from  his  post — ostensibly  on 
his  previous  connection  with  royalty — and  was  wise 
enough  to  fly  to  his  native  town  in  the  south. 

During  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  dictatorship  of  David  was  supreme.  How  it  was 
finally  overthrown  we  shall  see  in  another  chapter. 


249 


THE  ENGLISH  SCHOOL 


THE  EARLY  PORTRAIT  PAINTERS 

In  the  preface  to  the  Anecdotes  of Painting 'written  in  The  Early 
1762,  Horace  Walpole  observes  that  this  country  had  Portrait 
not  a  single  volume  to  showon  the  works  of  its  painters.  Painters 
11  In  truth,"  he  continues,  "it  has  very  rarely  given  birth 
to  a  genius  in  that  profession.    Flanders  and  Holland 
have  sent  us  the  greatest  men  that  we  can  boast.    This 
very  circumstance  may  with  reason  prejudice  the  reader 
against  a  work,  the  chief  business  of  which  must  be  to 
celebrate  the  art  of  a  country  which  has  produced  so  few 
good  artists.   This  objection  is  so  striking,  that  instead 
of  calling  it  The  Lives  of  English  Painters,  I  have 
simply  given  it  the  title  of  Anecdotes  of  Painting  in 
England!' 

As  Walpole's  work  was  merely  a  compilation  from 
the  voluminous  notes  of  George  Vertue,  a  painstaking 
antiquary  who  had  collected  every  scrap  of  information 
he  could  acquire  in  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  his  conclusions  can  hardly  be  questioned,  and 
the  foundation  of  the  English  school  of  painting  is 
therefore  generally  assumed  to  have  been  effected  by 
Reynolds.  But  as  Wren's  Cathedral  replaced  an  older 
one  which  was  destroyed  by  the  fire  of  London,  and  as 

251 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Early  that  was  reared  on  the  foundation  of  a  Roman  temple, 

Portrait  so  we  find  that  the  art  of  painting  in  England  was 

Painters  certainly  practised  in  earlier  times,  and  but  for  certain 

circumstances  much  more  of  it  would  have  survived 

than  is  now  to  be  found. 

In  other  countries,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Church  was 
in  earlier  times  the  greatest  if  not  the  only  patron  of 
the  arts,  and  there  is  plenty  of  evidence  to  show  that  in 
England,  too,  from  the  reign  of  Henry  III.  onwards  till 
the  Reformation,  our  churches  were  decorated  with 
frescoes.  This  evidence  is  of  two  kinds ;  first,  entries  in 
royal  and  other  accounts,  directing  payment  for  speci- 
fied work ;  and  secondly,  the  remains  of  fresco  paint- 
ing in  our  cathedrals  and  churches.  The  former  is  of 
little  interest  except  to  the  antiquary.  The  latter  has 
suffered  so  much  from  neglect  or  actual  destruction  as 
to  be  considered  unworthy  of  the  attention  of  either 
the  artist  in  search  of  inspiration  or  the  critic  in  pursuit 
of  anything  to  criticise  ;  but  when  every  inconsiderable 
production  in  the  little  world  of  English  art  has  had 
its  bulky  quarto  written  upon  it,  it  is  curious  that  no 
one  has  yet  discovered  what  a  splendid  harvest  awaits 
the  investigation  of  these  old  frescoes  all  over  the 
country. 

As  it  is,  we  have  only  to  note  that  as  religion  was 
so  important  an  influence  on  painting  in  other  countries 
so  was  it  in  England,  only  unfortunately  as  a  destroying 
and  not  a  cherishing  influence.  Granting  the  proba- 
bility that  there  were  few,  if  any,  of  our  English  frescoes 
which  would  be  comparable  in  artistic  interest  with 
those  in  Italy,  where  the  art  was  so  sedulously  culti- 
vated, it  must  nevertheless  be  remembered  that  only  a 
fragment  remains  here  and  there  out  of  all  the  work 
which  must  have  been  produced,  and  that  after  the 

252 


The  English  School 


Reformation  even  those  works  which  did  survive  were  The  Early 
treated  with  positive  as  well  as  negative  obloquy,  so  Portrait 
that  where  they  have  been  preserved  at  all  it  is  only  by  Painters 
having  been  whitewashed  over  or  otherwise  hidden 
and  damaged. 

Even  worse  than  the  Reformation  in  1530,  was  the 
Puritan  outburst  a  century  later,  which  not  only  de- 
stroyed works  of  art,  but  extinguished  all  hope  of  their 
being  created.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  then,  that  the 
foundation  of  the  English  School  of  painting  should 
have  been  postponed  for  a  century  more  ? 

At  the  same  time  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the 
little  painting  which  did  creep  into  England  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  was  of  the  very  kind  that  formed  the 
chief  feature  of  the  English  School  when  it  was  finally 
established,  namely  portraiture.  Here  again  we  see 
the  influence  of  religion  ;  for  to  the  reformed  church, 
at  least  as  interpreted  by  the  English  temperament,  the 
second  commandment  was  and  is  still  second  only  in 
number,  not  in  importance.  To  Protestant  or  Puritan 
the  idea  of  a  picture  in  a  church  was  anathema.  As 
late  as  1766,  when  Benjamin  West  offered  to  decorate 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral  with  a  painting  of  Moses  receiving 
the  tables  of  the  law  on  Mount  Sinai,  the  Bishop  ex- 
claimed, "  I  have  heard  of  the  proposition,  and  as  I  am 
head  of  the  Cathedral  of  the  Metropolis,  I  will  not 
suffer  the  doors  to  be  opened  to  introduce  popery." 

The  painting  of  a  portrait,  however,  was  a  very 
different  matter,  and  from  the  earliest  times  appears 
to  have  appealed  with  peculiar  strength  to  the  vanity 
of  Britons.  Loudly  as  they  protested  against  the 
iniquity  of  bowing  down  to  and  worshipping  the  like- 
ness of  anything  in  heaven  above  or  in  the  earth  be- 
neath or  in  the  waters  under  the  earth,  they  were  never 

253 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Early  averse  to  giving  others  an  opportunity  of  bowing  down 
Portrait  to  and  worshipping  the  likenesses  of  themselves  ;  and 
Painters  while  religion  fostered  the  arts  in  other  countries,  self- 
importance  kept  them  alive  in  this.     The  portrait  of 
Richard  II.  in  Westminster  Abbey,  if  not  actually  an 
instance  of  this,  certainly  happens  to  seem  like  one. 

With  the  exception  of  Jan  de  Mabuse,  who  is  said  to 
have  been  in  England  for  a  short  time  during  the  reign 
of  Henry  VII., the  first  painter  of  any  importance  in  this 
country  was  Hans  Holbein.  Hearing  that  money  was 
to  be  made  by  painting  portraits  at  the  English  Court, 
he  forsook  his  native  town,  his  religious  art,  and  his 
wife,  and  came  to  stay  writh  Sir  Thomas  More  at  Chelsea, 
with  an  introduction  from  Erasmus.  Arriving  in  1527, 
he  started  business  by  making  a  sketch  in  pen  and  ink 
of  More's  entire  family,  with  which  marvellous  work, 
still  preserved  in  the  Museum  at  Basle,  the  history  of 
modern  English  painting  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  be- 
gun ;  for  though  it  wras  long  before  a  native  of  England 
was  forthcoming  who  was  of  sufficient  force  to  carry  on 
the  tradition,  the  seed  was  sown,  and  in  due  course  the 
plant  appeared,  and  after  many  vicissitudes,  at  last 
flourished. 

The  immediate  effect  may  be  noted  by  mentioning 
here  the  names  of  Guillim  STREETES,whowas  possibly 
English  born,  and  John  Bettes  who  certainly  was.  To 
the  former  is  attributed  the  large  whole-length  portraitat 
Hampton  Court  of  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey,  in 
a  suitof  bright  red.  Anotherportraitof  Howard  belongs 
to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  having  been  presented  to  hisan- 
cestor  by  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  Both  were  exhibited  at 
the  Tudor  Exhibition  in  1892.  Streetes  was  painter  to 
King  Edward  VI.,  and  according  to  Stype  he  was  paid 
fifty  marks,  in  1 55 1,  "for  recompense  of  three  great  tables 

254 


The  English  School 


whereof  two  were  the  pictures  of  his  Highness  sent  to  The  Early 
Sir  Thomas  Hoby  and  Sir  John  Mason  (ambassadors  Portrait 
abroad),  the  third  a  picture  of  the  late  Earl  of  Surrey  Painters 
attainted,  and  by  the  Councils'  commandment  fetched 
from  the  said  Guillim's  house."    Horace  Walpole  was 
under  the  impression  that  this  was  the  Duke  of  Nor- 
folk's picture,  but  the  Hampton  Court  Catalogue  claims 
the  other  one  as  the  work  of  Streetes. 

In  the  National  Gallery  is  a  bust  portrait  of  Edmund 
Butts,  physician  to  Henry  VIII.,  which  is  inscribed 
faict par  Johan  Bettes  Anglois,a.n&  with  the  date  1545. 
In  this  the  influence  of  Holbein  is  certainly  discernible, 
though  not  all  pervading.  There  were  two  brothers, 
Thomas  and  John  Bettes  who  are  mentioned  by 
Meres  with  several  other  English  painters  in  Palladis 
Tamia,  published  in  1598 — "As  Greece  had  more- 
over their  painters,  so  in  England  we  have  also  these, 
William  and  Francis  Segar,brethren,Thomas  and  John 
Bettes,  Lockie,  Lyne,  Peake,  Peter  Cole,  Arnolde, 
Marcus  (Mark  Garrard),"  etc.  Walpole,  quoting  this, 
adds, "  I  quote  this  passage  to  prove  to  those  who  learn 
one  or  two  names  by  rote  that  every  old  picture  you  see 
is  not  by  Holbein."  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  until  some  considerable  fundof  information 
concerning  these  early  days  of  painting  is  brought  to 
light,  there  is  very  little  to  be  said  about  any  one  except 
Holbein  till  almost  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

That  Holbein  was  "a  wonderful  artist,"  as  More 
wrote  to  Erasmus,  is  not  to  be  denied.  But  in  placing 
him  among  the  very  greatest,  we  must  not  forget  that 
his  range  was  somewhat  limited.  We  might  nowadays 
call  him  a  specialist,  for  in  England  he  painted  nothing 
but  portraits,  and  very  few  of  his  pictures  contained 
anything  besides  the  single  figure,  or  head,  of  the  sub- 

255 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Early  ject.  The  famous  exception  is  the  large  picture  called 
Portrait  The  Ambassadors,  which  was  purchased  at  an  enor- 
Painters  m0us  price  from  the  Longford  Castle  collection,  and  is 
now  in  the  National  Gallery.  Important  and  interest- 
ing as  this  is  as  showing  us  how  Holbein  could  fill  a 
large  canvas,  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  is  far  happier  in 
simple  portraiture,  and  that  the  ^"60,000  expended  on 
Christina  Duchess  of  Milan  was,  relatively,  a  better  in- 
vestment for  the  nation.  In  the  famous  half-lengths 
like  the  George  Gisze  at  Berlin  (which  was  painted  in 
London)  and  the  Man  with  the  Hawk,  where  the  por- 
trait is  surrounded  by  accessories,  Holbein  is  perhaps 
at  his  very  best;  but  it  is  as  a  painter  of  heads,  simply, 
that  he  influenced  the  English  School,  and  set  an  ex- 
ample which,  alas  !  has  never  been  attainable  since. 

For  one  thing,  which  is  apart  altogether  from  talent 
or  genius,  Holbein's  method  was  never  followed  in  later 
times,  namely,  the  practice  of  making  carefully  finished 
drawings  in  crayon  before  painting  a  portrait  in  oils. 
He  was  a  wonderful  draughtsman,  and  in  the  series  of 
overeightydrawingsat  Windsor  we  haveevenmore  life- 
like images  of  the  persons  represented  than  their  fin- 
ished portraits.  I  am  not  aware  that  any  portrait 
drawings  exists  of  Holbein's  contemporaries  or  suc- 
cessors in  England  earlier  than  one  or  two  by  Van 
Dyck.  There  are  a  good  many  belonging  to  the 
seventeenth  century,  but  with  one  or  two  exceptions 
they  are  little  more  than  sketches.  And  though  sketches 
have  only  survived  by  accident,  as  it  were,  not  being 
intended  for  anything  more  than  the  artist's  own  pur- 
poses, finished  drawings  would  have  been  kept,  like 
Holbein's,  with  much  greater  care. 

In  a  word,  then,  Holbein's  first  and  chief  business 
was  in  rendering  the  likeness  of  the  sitter.     Being  a 

256 


PLATE  XXXVII.— HANS  HOLBEIN 

ANNE  OF  CLEVES 
Louvre,  Paris 


=*** 


The  English  School 


born  genius,  he  accomplished  far  more  than  this  ;  but  The  Early 
it  is  important  in  tracing  thedevelopmentof  the  English  Portrait 
School  of  painting  to  remember  that  its  origin  was  not  Painters 
in  the  idealization  of  religious  sentiment,  but  in  the 
realization  of  the  human  features.     From  the  time  of 
the  firstgreatgenius  to  that  of  the  next,  exactly  a  century- 
later,  there  is  hardly  a  portrait  in  existence  that  is  valued 
for  anything  but  its  historic  or  personal  interest.     Be- 
tween Holbein  and  Van  Dyck  is  a  great  gap,  in  which 
the  only  names  of  Englishmen  are  those  of  the  minia- 
turists, Hilliard  and  Oliver,  who  were  veritably  of  the 
seed  of  Holbein,  but  only  in  little. 

Van  Dyck  struck  deeper  into  the  English  soil,  and 
loosened  it  sufficiently  for  the  growth  of  larger  stuff, 
if  still  somewhat  coarse,  like  the  work  of  William 
Dobson  and  Robert  Walker.  To  Van  Dyck  succeeded 
Peter  Lely,  who  boldly  and  worthily  assumed  the 
mantle  of  Van  Dyck,  and  kept  English  portraiture  alive 
throughout  the  dismal  period  of  the  Commonwealth. 
After  the  Restoration  he  was  still  in  power,  and  under 
him  flourished  one  or  two  painters  of  English  birth, 
like  Greenhill  and  Riley,  who  in  turn  gave  way  to 
others  under  Kneller  without  ceding  the  monopoly  to 
foreigners.  From  these  came  Jervas,  Richardson, 
and,  most  important,  Hudson,  who  was  Reynolds's 
master,  and  so  we  arrive  at  the  beginning  of  what  is 
now  generally  known  as  the  English  School. 

Another  source,  however,  must  here  be  mentioned 
as  joining  the  main  stream,  and  contributing  a  solid 
body  of  water  to  it,  chiefly  below  the  surface,  namely 
the  art  of  William  Hogarth.  Being  essentially 
English,  and  without  any  artistic  forefathers,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  he  left  less  perceptible  impressions  on 
his  immediate  successors  than  the  more  accomplished 
r  257 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


7  he  Early  and  educated  Reynolds;  but  the  solid  force  of  his  char- 

Portrait  acter,  as  exemplified  in  his  career  and  his  works,  is 

Painters  hardly  a  less  important  factor  in  the  development  of  the 

English  School,  while  from  his  outspoken  opinions  on 

the  state  of  the  arts  in  his  time  he  is  one  of  the  most 

valuable  sources  of  its  history. 


II 

WILLIAM  HOGARTH 

William  Hogarth  occupies  a  curious  position  in 
the  history  of  English  painting.  There  was  nothing 
ever  quite  like  him  in  any  country — except  Greuze  in 
France ;  for  though  a  comparison  between  two  such 
opposites,  seems  at  first  sight  absurd,  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  French  and  English  painting  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  no  less  far  apart. 
Both  Greuze  and  Hogarth,  in  their  own  fashion,  tried 
to  preach  moral  lessons  in  paint,  the  one  in  the  over- 
refined  atmosphere  of  French  surroundings,  the  other 
in  the  coarse  language  of  England  in  his  time. 

Hogarth's  chief  characteristic  was  his  blunt,  honest, 
bull-dog  Englishness,  which  at  the  particular  moment 
of  his  appearance  on  the  artistic  stage  was  a  quality 
which  was  eminently  serviceable  to  English  painting. 
Though  of  humble  parents,  his  honest  and  forceful 
character  won  for  him  the  daughter  of  Sir  James  Thorn- 
hill  in  marriage  (by  elopement)  and  his  sturdy  talent 
in  painting  secured  for  him  his  father-in-law's  forgive- 
ness and  encouragement.  Thornhill  came  of  a  good, 
oldWiltshirefamily,andhadbeenknightedbyGeorgeI. 
for  his  sterling  merits  as  much  as  for  his  skill  in  paint- 

258 


The  English  School 


ing  and  decorating  the  royal  palaces  and  the  houses  of  William 
noblemen.  His  place  among  English  artists  is  not  a  Hogarth 
very  high  one,  but  he  deserves  the  credit  of  having 
stood  out  against  the  monopoly  that  was  being  estab- 
lished by  foreigners  in  this  country  in  every  department 
of  artistic  work,  and  in  this  sense  he  is  a  still  earlier 
forerunner  of  the  great  English  painters,  than  his  more 
forcible  son-in-law. 

If  Hogarth  had  been  content  to  follow  the  beaten 
track  of  portraiture  as  his  main  pursuit,  and  let  the 
country's  morals  take  care  of  themselves,  he  would  in 
all  probability  have  attained  much  greater  heights  as  a 
painter.  But  his  nature  would  not  allow  him  to  do 
this.  His  character  was  too  strong  and  his  originality 
too  uncontrollable.     There  is  enough  evidence  among  M 

the  works  which  have  survived  him,  especially  in  those  ^r 
which  were  never  finished,  to  show  that  his  accomplish- 
ments in  oil  painting  were  of  a  very  high  order  indeed. 
I  need  only  refer  to  the  famous  head  in  the  National 
Gallery  known  as  The  Shrimp  Girl  to  explain  what 
I  mean.  In  this  surprisingly  vivacious  and  charming 
sketch  we  see  something  that  is  not  inferior  to  Hals, 
in  its  broad  truth  and  its  quick  seizure  of  the  essentials 
of  what  had  to  be  rendered.  In  another  unfinished 
piece,  which  is  now  in  the  South  London  Art  Gallery 
at  Camberwell,  we  see  the  same  powerful  qualities  dif- 
ferently exhibited,  for  it  is  not  a  single  head  this  time, 
but  a  sketch  of  a  ballroom  where  everybody  is  dancing, 
except  one  gentleman  who  is  even  more  vivid  than  the 
rest,  in  the  act  of  mopping  his  head  at  the  open  win- 
dow. There  is  nothing  grotesque  in  this  picture,  but 
it  is  all  perfectly  lifelike  and  wonderfully  sketched  in. 

In  his  finished  pictures  Hogarth  does  not  appear 
to  such  great  advantage — I  mean  as  a  painter ;  but  it 

259 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


William  must  be  remembered  that  in  his  day  there  was  little 
Hogarth  example  for  him  to  follow  in  the  higher  departments  of 
his  art.  Nor  had  he  ever  been  out  of  England  to  see 
fine  pictures  on  the  Continent.  Not  only  this,  but  as 
his  work  was  intended  especially  to  appeal  to  ordinary 
people,  it  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  he  would  express 
himself  in  terms  other  than  might  most  quickly  appeal 
to  them.  His  most  famous  works,  indeed,  were  exe- 
cuted as  well  as  designed  for  the  engraver,  namely  The 
Harlofs  Progress,  The  Rakes  Progress,  Marriage  a 
la  Mode,  and  The  Election,  each  of  which  consisted  of  a 
series  of  several  minutely  finished  pictures.  In  por- 
traiture he  showed  finer  qualities,  it  is  true ;  but  even 
in  these  he  was  thinking  more  of  getting  the  most  out 
of  his  model,  according  to  his  forcible  character,  than 
of  any  technical  refinements  for  which  he  might  be 
handed  down  to  posterity  as  a  great  painter. 

It  was  easy  enough  for  Reynolds  to  sneer  at  Hogarth 
for  his  vulgarity,  when  he  was  trying  to  impress  upon 
his  pupils  the  importance  of  painting  in  the  grand  style. 
"  As  for  the  various  departments  of  painting,"  he  says 
in  his  third  Discourse,  "  which  do  not  presume  to  make 
such  high  pretensions,  they  are  many.  None  of  them 
are  without  their  merit,  though  none  enter  into  com- 
petition with  this  universal  presiding  idea  of  the  art. 
The  painters  who  have  applied  themselves  more  par- 
ticularly to  low  and  vulgar  characters,  and  who  express 
with  precision  the  various  shades  of  passion  as  they  are 
exhibited  by  vulgar  minds  (such  as  we  see  in  the  works 
of  Hogarth),  deserve  great  praise ;  but  as  their  genius 
has  been  employed  on  low  and  confined  subjects,  the 
praise  which  we  must  give  must  be  as  limited  as  its 
object."  And  yet  it  was  in  following  an  example  set  by 
Hogarth  in  portrait  painting  that  Reynolds  gained  his 

260 


PLATE  XXXVIII.— WILLIAM  HOGARTH 

THE  SHRIMP  GIRL 

National  Gallery,  London 


The  English  School 


first  success  in  that  art.  I  mean  the  full-length  portrait  William 
of  Captain  Keppel,  painted  in  1 752.  This  originality  and  Hogarth 
boldness  in  disregarding  the  tame  but  universal  con- 
vention in  posing  the  sitter  was  peculiarly  Hogarth's 
own.  With  him  it  amounted  almost  to  perverseness. 
He  would  not  let  anybody  "  sit "  to  him,  if  he  could 
help  it.  When  he  did,  as  in  the  portraits  of  Quinn, 
the  actor,  and  Hoadly,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  in  the 
National  Gallery,  the  result  is  not  the  happiest ;  for, 
with  all  their  force,  these  portraits  lack  the  grace 
that  a  conventional  pose  requires  to  render  it  accept- 
able in  the  terms  of  its  convention.  If  a  man  must 
put  on  the  accepted  evening  dress  of  his  time,  he 
must  see  that  it  conforms  in  the  spirit  as  well  as  in 
the  letter  of  the  fashion,  or  he  will  only  look  like 
a  dressed-up  greengrocer.  Hogarth  was  too  sturdy 
and  too  wilful  to  put  on  court  clothes.  If  he  had  to,  he 
struggled  with  them. 

Hogarth's  father  was  a  man  of  literary  tastes,  and  a 
scholar.  He  had  written  a  supplement  to  Littleton's 
Latin  Dictionary,  but  was  unable  to  get  it  published. 
"I  saw  the  difficulties,"  writes  the  artist,  "  under  which 
my  father  laboured  ;  the  many  inconveniences  he  en- 
dured from  his  dependence,  living  chiefly  on  his  pen, 
and  the  cruel  treatment  he  met  with  from  booksellers 
and  printers.  I  had  before  my  eyes  the  precarious  situa- 
tion of  men  of  classical  education;  it  was  therefore  con- 
formable to  my  wishes  that  I  was  taken  from  school  and 
served  a  long  apprenticeship  to  a  silver-plate  engraver." 
This  is  printed  in  Allan  Cunningham's  Life  of  Hogarth, 
together  with  many  more  extracts  from  autobiographi- 
cal memoranda,  from  which  we  may  learn  at  first  hand 
a  great  deal  of  information  bearing  on  the  state  of  paint- 
ing at  this  period,  and  the  circumstances  under  which 

261 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


William  it  received  such  a  stimulus  from  Hogarth,  before  the 
Hogarth  sun  had  fully  risen  (in  the  person  of  Reynolds)  to  illu- 
mine the  whole  period  of  British  art. 

"  As  I  had  naturally  a  good  eye  and  fondness  for 
drawing,"  Hogarth  continues,  "  shows  of  all  sorts  gave 
me  uncommon  pleasure  when  young,  and  mimicry, 
common  to  all  children,  was  remarkable  in  me.  An 
early  access  to  a  neighbouring  painter  drew  my  atten- 
tion from  play,  and  I  was  at  every  possible  opportunity 

engaged  in  making  drawings My  exercises  at  school 

were  more  remarkable  for  the  ornaments  which  adorned 
them  than  for  the  exercise  itself.  In  the  former  I  soon 
found  that  blockheads  with  better  memories  would 
soon  surpass  me,  but  for  the  latter  I  was  particularly 
distinguished. 

"The  painting  of  St.  Paul's  and  Greenwich  Hospital, 
which  were  at  that  time  going  on,  ran  in  my  head,  and 
I  determined  that  silver-plate  engraving  should  be  fol- 
lowed no  longer  than  necessity  obliged  me  to  it.  En- 
graving on  copper  was,  at  twenty  years  of  age,  my 
utmost  ambition.  To  attain  that  it  was  necessary  that 
I  should  learn  to  draw  objects  something  like  nature, 
instead  of  the  monsters  of  heraldry,  and  the  common 
methods  of  study  were  much  too  tedious  for  one  who 
loved  his  pleasure  and  came  so  late  to  it.  .  .  .  This  led 
me  to  consider  whether  a  shorter  road  than  that  usually 
travelled  was  not  to  be  found.  ...  I  had  learned  by 
practice  to  copy  with  tolerable  correctness  in  the  ordin- 
ary way,  but  it  occurred  to  me  that  there  were  many 
disadvantages  attending  this  method  of  study,  as  hav- 
ing faulty  originals,  etc.;  and  even  when  the  prints  or 
pictures  to  be  imitated  were  by  the  best  masters,  it  was 
little  more  than  pouring  water  out  of  one  vessel  into 
another.     Many  reasons  led  me  to  wish  that  I  could 

262 


The  English  School 


find  a  shorter  path — fix  forms  and  characters  in  my  William 
mind — and,  instead  of  copying  the  lines,  try  to  read  the  Hogartb 
language,  and  if  possible  find  the  grammar  of  the  art, 
by  bringing  into  one  focus  the  various  observations  I 
had  made,  and  then  trying  by  my  power  on  the  canvas 
how  far  my  plan  enabled  me  to  combine  and  apply  them 
to  practice.  .  .  . 

"I  had  one  material  advantage  over  my  competitors, 
viz.,  the  early  habit  I  acquired  of  retaining  in  my 
mind's  eye,  without  coldly  copying  on  the  spot,  what- 
ever I  intended  to  imitate.  .  .  .  Instead  of  burdening 
the  memory  with  musty  rules,  or  tiring  the  eye  with 
copying  dry  or  damaged  pictures,  I  have  ever  found 
studying  from  nature  the  shortest  and  safest  way  of 
obtaining  knowledge  in  my  art.  .  .  ." 

"I  entertained  some  thoughts,"  he  writes  again,  "of 
succeeding  in  what  the  puffers  in  books  call  the  great 
style  of  history  painting,  so  that,  without  having  had  a 
stroke  of  this  grand  business  before,  I  quitted  small 
portraits  and  familiar  conversations,  and  with  a  smile 
at  my  own  temerity  commenced  history  painter,  and  on 
a  great  staircase  at  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital  painted 
two  Scripture  stories,  The  Pool  of  Bethesda  and  The 
Good  Samaritan,  with  figures  seven  feet  high.  These 
I  presented  to  the  charity,  and  thought  that  they  might 
serve  as  a  specimen  to  show  that,  were  there  an  inclina- 
tion in  England  for  encouraging  historical  pictures, 
such  a  first  essay  might  prove  the  painting  them  more 
easily  attainable  than  is  generally  imagined.  But 
as  Religion,  the  great  promoter  of  this  style  in  other 
countries,  rejected  it  in  England,  and  I  was  unwilling 
to  sink  into  a  portrait-manufacturer — and  still  ambi- 
tious of  being  singular,  I  soon  dropped  all  expecta- 
tions of  advantage  from  that  source,  and  returned  to 

263 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


William  the  pursuit  of  my  former  dealings  with  the  public  at 
Hogarth  large." 

Few  seemed  disposed  to  recognise,  in  any  of 
Hogarth's  works,  a  higher  aim  than  that  of  raising  a 
laugh.  Somerville,  the  poet,  dedicated  his  Rural 
Games  to  Hogarth  in  these  words — "  Permit  me,  Sir, 
to  make  choice  of  you  for  my  patron,  being  the  great- 
est master  in  the  burlesque  way.  Your  province  is  the 
town — leave  me  a  small  outride  in  the  country,  and  I 
shall  be  content/'  Fielding  had  a  different  opinion  of 
his  merits :  "  He  who  would  call  the  ingenious  Hogarth 
a  burlesque  painter  would  in  my  opinion  do  him  very 
little  honour,  for  sure  it  is  much  easier,  much  less  the 
subject  of  admiration,  to  paint  a  man  with  a  nose,  or 
any  other  feature  of  a  preposterous  size,  or  to  expose 
him  in  some  absurd  or  monstrous  attitude,  than  to  ex- 
press the  affections  of  man  on  canvas.  It  hath  been 
thought  a  vast  commendation  of  a  painter  to  say  his 
figures  seem  to  breathe,  but  surely  it  is  a  much  greater 
and  nobler  applause  that  they  appear  to  think." 

In  answer  to  criticism  of  his  Analysis  of  Beauty, 
Hogarth  writes  :  "  Among  other  crimes  of  which  I  am 
accused,  it  is  asserted  that  I  have  abused  the  '  Great 
Masters ' ;  this  is  far  from  being  just.  So  far  from 
attempting  to  lower  the  ancients,  I  have  always 
thought,  and  it  is  universally  admitted,  that  they  knew 
some  fundamental  principles  in  nature  which  enabled 
them  to  produce  works  that  have  been  the  admiration 
of  succeeding  ages  ;  but  I  have  not  allowed  this  merit 
to  those  leaden-headed  imitators,  who,  having  no  con- 
sciousness of  either  symmetry  or  propriety,  have 
attempted  to  mend  nature,  and  in  their  truly  ideal 
figures,  gave  similar  proportions  to  a  Mercury  and  a 
Hercules.'' 

264 


The  English  School 


Another  and  a  better  spirit  influenced  him  in  the  William 
following  passage — he  is  proposing  to  seek  the  princi-  Hogarth 
pies  of  beauty  in  nature  instead  of  looking  for  them  in 
mere  learning.  His  words  are  plain,  direct,  and  con- 
vincing. "  Nature  is  simple,  plain,  and  true  in  all  her 
works,  and  those  who  strictly  adhere  to  her  laws,  and 
closely  attend  to  her  appearances  in  their  infinite 
varieties  are  guarded  against  any  prejudicial  bias  from 
truth ;  while  those  who  have  seen  many  things  that 
they  cannot  well  understand,  and  read  many  books 
which  they  do  not  fully  comprehend,  notwithstanding 
all  their  parade  of  knowledge,  are  apt  to  wander  about 
it  and  about  it;  perplexing  themselves  and  their  readers 
with  the  various  opinions  of  other  men.  As  to  those 
painters  who  have  written  treatises  on  painting,  they 
were  in  general  too  much  taken  up  with  giving  rules 
for  the  operative  part  of  the  art,  to  enter  into  physical 
disquisitions  on  the  nature  of  the  objects." 

After  this  it  would  be  unfair  to  withhold  the  praise 
of  Benjamin  West  (who  succeeded  Reynolds  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  Royal  Academy) — a  painter,  prudent  in 
speech,  and  frugal  in  commendation.  "  I  remember, 
when  I  was  a  lad,"  says  Smith,  in  his  account  of 
Nollekens,  "asking  the  late  venerable  President  West 
what  he  thought  of  Hogarth's  Analysis  of  Beauty,  and 
his  answer  was,  '  It  is  a  work  of  the  highest  value  to 
everyone  studying  the  art.  Hogarth  was  a  strutting 
consequential  little  man,  and  made  himself  many 
enemies  by  that  book  ;  but  now  that  most  of  them  are 
dead,  it  is  examined  bydisinterested  readers,  unbiassed 
by  personal  animosities,  and  will  be  more  and  more 
read,  studied  and  understood.' " 

In  his  memoranda  respecting  the  establishment  of 
an  Academy  of  Art  in  England,  Hogarth  writes  well 

265 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


William  and  wisely.  Voltaire  asserts  that  after  the  establish- 
Hogarth  ment  of  the  French  Academy  not  one  work  of  genius 
appeared,  for  all  the  painters  became  mannerists  and 
imitators.  Hogarth  agrees  with  him,  declaring  that 
M  the  institution  will  serve  to  raise  and  pension  a  few 
bustling  and  busy  men,  whose  whole  employment  will 
be  to  tell  a  few  simple  students  when  a  leg  is  too  long, 
or  an  arm  too  short.  More  will  flock  to  the  study  of 
art  than  genius  sends  ;  the  hope  of  profit,  or  the  thirst 
of  distinction,  will  induce  parents  to  push  their  off- 
spring into  the  lecture-room,  and  many  will  appear 
and  but  few  be  worthy.  The  paintings  of  Italy  form 
a  sort  of  ornamental  fringe  to  their  gaudy  religion,  and 
Rome  is  the  general  storeshop  of  Europe.  The  arts 
owe  much  to  Popery,  and  Popery  owes  much  of  its 
universality  to  the  arts.  The  French  have  attained  to 
a  sort  of  foppish  magnificence  in  art ;  in  Holland, 
selfishness  is  the  ruling  passion,  and  in  England  vanity 
is  united  with  selfishness.  Portrait-painting,  there- 
fore, has  succeeded,  and  ever  will  succeed  better  in 
England  than  in  any  other  country,  and  the  demand 
will  continue  as  new  faces  come  into  the  market. 

"  Portrait  painting  is  one  of  the  ministers  of  vanity, 
and  vanity  is  a  munificent  patroness  ;  historical  paint- 
ing seeks  to  revive  the  memory  of  the  dead,  and  the 
dead  are  very  indifferent  paymasters.  Paintings  are 
plentiful  enough  in  England  to  keep  us  from  the  study 
of  nature ;  but  students  who  confine  their  studies  to 
the  works  of  the  dead,  need  never  hope  to  live  them- 
selves ;  they  will  learn  little  more  than  the  names  of 
the  painters  :  true  painting  can  only  be  learnt  in  one 
school,  and  that  is  kept  by  Nature." 

Hogarth  disliked  a  formal  school,  says  Cunning- 
ham, because  he  was  the  pupil  of  nature,  and  foresaw 

266 


The  English  School 


that  students  would  flock  to  it  from  the  feeling  of  trade  William 
rather  than  the  impulse  of  genius,  and  that  it  become  Hogarth 
a  manufactory  for  conventional  forms  and  hereditary 
graces.  Opulent  collectors  were  filling  their  galleries 
with  the  religious  paintings  of  the  Romish  Church,  and 
vindicating  their  purchases  by  representing  theseworks 
as  the  only  patterns  of  all  that  is  noble  in  art  and 
worthy  of  imitation.  Hogarth  perceived  that  all  this 
was  not  according  to  the  natural  spirit  of  the  nation  ; 
he  well  knew  that  our  island  had  not  yet  poured  out 
its  own  original  mind  in  art,  as  it  had  done  in  poetry  ; 
and  he  felt  assured  that  such  a  time  would  come,  if 
native  genius  were  not  overlaid  systematically  by  mock 
patrons  and  false  instructors. 

"As  a  painter,"  says  Walpole,  "Hogarth  has 
slender  merit."  "What  is  the  merit  of  a  painter?" 
Cunningham  concludes.  "  If  it  be  to  represent  life — to 
give  us  an  image  of  man — to  exhibit  the  workings  of 
his  heart — to  record  the  good  and  evil  of  his  nature — 
to  set  in  motion  before  us  the  very  beings  with  whom 
earth  is  peopled — to  shake  us  with  mirth — to  sadden 
us  with  woeful  reflection — to  please  us  with  natural 
grouping,  vivid  action,  and  vigorous  colouring — Ho- 
garth has  done  all  this — and  if  he  that  has  done  so 
be  not  a  painter,  who  will  show  us  one  ?  " 


III 

SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS  AND  THOMAS 
GAINSBOROUGH 

Whether  or  not  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  is  entitled 
to  be  ranked  among  the  very  greatest  painters,  there 
can  be  no  question  that  he  has  a  place  among  the  most 

267 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Reynolds  famous,  not  only  on  account  of  his  actual  painting,  but 
ana }  Gains-  also  because  of  the  influence  exerted  by  his  whole- 
borough  hearted  devotion  to  his  art,  and  his  strong  character  in 
forming,  out  of  such  unpromising  elements,  a  really 
vigorous  school  of  painting  in  this  country.  The  ex- 
ample he  set  in  the  strenuous  exercise  of  his  profession, 
the  precepts  he  laid  down  for  the  guidance  of  students, 
and  the  dignity  with  which  he  invested  the  whole  prac- 
tice of  painting  which,  until  he  came,  had  degenerated 
into  a  mere  business,  were  of  incalculable  benefit  to  his 
own  and  succeeding  ages,  and  Edmund  Burke  was 
paying  him  no  empty  compliment  but  only  stating  the 
bare  truth  when  he  said  that  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  was 
the  first  Englishman  who  added  the  praise  of  the  ele- 
gant arts  to  the  other  glories  of  his  country. 

Joshua  Reynolds  was  born  at  Plympton  in  Devon- 
shire on  the  1 6th  July  1 723 ;  the  son  of  the  Rev.  Samuel 
Reynolds  and  his  wife  Theophila  Potter.  He  was  on 
every  side  connected  with  the  Church,  for  both  his 
father  and  his  grandfather  were  in  holy  orders,  his 
mother  was  the  daughter  of  a  clergyman,  and  his  mater- 
nal grandmother  also.  His  father's  elder  brother,  too, 
was  a  clergyman,  a  fellow  of  Eton  College  and  Canon 
of  St.  Peter's,  Exeter.  So  that  here,  as  in  Italy,  we 
start  with  a  basis  of  religion. 

The  young  artists  first  essays  were  made  in  copying 
several  little  things  done  by  his  elder  sisters,  and  he 
afterwards  took  great  delight  in  copying  such  prints 
as  he  met  with  in  his  father's  books,  particularly  those 
in  Plntarch's  Lives,  and  in  Jacob  Cats's  Book  of  Em- 
blems,which,  his  great-grandmother  by  his  father's  side, 
a  Dutch  woman,  had  brought  from  Holland.  When 
he  was  only  eight  years  old  he  read  with  great  avidity 
a  book  called  The  Jesuits  Perspective,  an  architectural, 

268 


The  English  School 


not  a  religious  work,  and  made  himself  so  completely  Reynolds 
master  of  it  that  he  never  afterwards  had  occasion  to  and Gains- 
study  any  other  treatise  on  the  subject.     In  fact,  ^borough 
drawing  which  he  then  made  of  Plympton  School  so 
filled  his  father  with  wonder  that  he  said  to  him,  "Now 
this  exemplifies  what  the  author  of  the  Perspective  says 
in  his  preface — that  by  observing  the  rules  laid  down  in 
his  book  a  man  may  do  wonders,  for  this  is  wonderful  1 " 

From  these  attempts  he  proceeded  to  draw  like- 
nesses of  his  friends  and  relations  with  tolerable  suc- 
cess. But  what  most  strongly  confirmed  him  in  his 
love  of  the  art  was  Richardson's  Treatise  on  Painting, 
the  perusal  of  which  so  delighted  and  inflamed  his 
mind,  that  Raphael  appeared  to  him  superior  to  the 
most  illustrious  names  of  ancient  or  modern  times — a 
notion  which  he  loved  to  indulge  all  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Before  he  was  eighteen  years  old  his  father  placed 
him  as  a  pupil  with  Thomas  Hudson,  who  was  then 
the  most  distinguished  portrait-painter  in  England  ; 
but  having  some  disagreement  with  his  master,  the 
young  man  returned  to  Devonshire,  where  he  practised 
portrait  painting  with  more  or  less  success  until  in  1 749 
he  accompanied  Admiral  Keppel  to  the  Mediterranean, 
and  remained  for  two  or  three  years  studying  the  old 
masters  in  Italy. 

As  this  period  of  Reynold's  career  had  so  determin- 
ing an  influence  not  only  on  himself  but  on  the  whole 
course  of  the  history  of  painting  in  England — inas- 
much as  it  formed  the  greater  part  of  the  groundwork 
of  his  discourses  when  President  of  the  Royal  Academy, 
it  is  worth  having  an  account  of  it  at  first  hand  from 
the  painter  himself.  "  It  has  frequently  happened,"  he 
says,  "  as  I  was  informed  by  the  Keeper  of  the  Vatican, 
that  many  of  those  whom  he  had  conducted  through 

269 


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Reynolds  the  various  apartments  of  that  edifice  when  about  to 
and  Gains-  be  dismissed,  have  asked  for  the  works  of  Raphael,  and 
borough  would  not  believe  that  they  had  already  passed  through 
the  room  where  they  are  preserved,  so  little  impression 
had  those  performances  made  on  them.  One  of  the 
first  painters  now  in  France  once  told  me  that  this  cir- 
cumstance happened  to  himself,  though  he  now  looks 
on  Raphael  with  that  veneration  which  he  deserves 
from  all  painters  and  lovers  of  the  art.  I  remember  very 
well  my  own  disappointment  when  I  first  visited  the 
the  Vatican:  but  on  confessing  my  feelings  to  a  brother 
student,  of  whose  ingenuousness  I  had  a  high  opinion, 
he  acknowledged  that  the  works  of  Raphael  had  the 
same  effect  on  him,  or  rather  that  they  did  not  produce 
the  effect  which  he  expected.  This  was  a  great  relief 
to  my  mind,  and  on  inquiry  further  of  other  students 
I  found  that  those  persons  only  who  from  natural  im- 
becility appeared  to  be  incapable  of  ever  relishing  those 
divine  performances,  made  pretensions  to  instantan- 
eous raptures  on  first  beholding  them. 

"In  justice  to  myself,  however,  I  must  add  that 
though  disappointed  and  mortified  at  not  finding  my- 
self enraptured  with  the  works  of  this  great  master,  I 
did  not  for  a  moment  conceive  or  suppose  that  the  name 
of  Raphael,  and  those  admirable  paintings  in  particu- 
lar, owed  their  reputation  to  the  ignorance  and  preju- 
dice of  mankind;  on  the  contrary,  my notrelishing  them 
as  I  was  conscious  I  ought  to  have  done  was  one  of 
the  most  humiliating  circumstances  that  ever  happened 
to  me.  I  found  myself  in  the  midst  of  works  executed 
upon  principles  with  which  I  was  unacquainted  :  I  felt 
my  ignorance,  and  stood  abashed.  All  the  indigested 
notions  of  painting  which  I  had  brought  with  me  from 
England  where  the  art  was  in  the  lowest  state  it  had 

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ever  been  in  (it  could  not  indeed  be  lower)  were  to  be  Reynolds 
totally  done  away  and  eradicated  from  my  mind.     It  and Gains- 
was  necessary,  as  it  is  expressed  on  a  very  solemn  borough 
occasion,  that  I  should  become  as  a  little  child. 

"Notwithstanding  my  disappointment,  I  proceeded 
to  copy  some  of  those  excellent  works.  I  viewed  them 
again  and  again  ;  I  even  affected  to  feel  their  merit  and 
to  admire  them  more  than  I  really  did.  In  a  short 
time  a  new  taste  and  new  perceptions  began  to  dawn 
upon  me,  and  I  was  convinced  that  I  had  originally 
formed  a  false  opinion  of  the  perfection  of  art,  and  that 
this  great  painter  was  well  entitled  to  the  high  rank 
which  he  holds  in  the  estimation  of  the  world." 

"When  I  was  at  Venice,"  he  writes  in  a  note  on  Du 
Fresnoy's  Art  of  Painting  about  the  chiaroscuro  of 
Titian,  Paul  Veronese  and  Tintoretto,  "  the  method  I 
took  to  avail  myself  of  their  principles  was  this.  When 
I  observed  an  extraordinary  effect  of  light  and  shade  in 
anypicture,I  took  aleaf  of  my  pocket-bookand  darkened 
every  part  of  it  in  the  same  gradation  of  light  and 
shade  as  the  picture,  leaving  the  white  paper  untouched 
to  represent  the  light,  and  this  without  any  attention  to 
the  subject  or  to  the  drawing  of  the  figures.  After  a 
few  experiments  I  found  the  paper  blotted  nearly  alike; 
their  general  practice  appeared  to  be  to  allow  not  above 
a  quarter  of  the  picture  for  the  light,  including  in  this 
portionboththe  principal  and  secondary  lights;  another 
quarter  to  be  as  dark  as  possible,  and  the  remaining 
half  kept  in  mezzotint  or  half  shadow. 

"  Rubens  appears  to  haveadmitted  rather  more  light 
than  a  quarter,  and  Rembrandt  much  less,  scarce  an 
eighth;  by  this  conduct  Rembrandt's  light  is  extremely 
brilliant,  but  it  costs  too  much,  the  rest  of  the  picture 
is  sacrificed  to  this  one  object." 

271 


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Reynolds  The  results  of  these  studies  in  Rome  and  Venice 
anal  Gains- were  at  once  observable  on  his  return  to  England  in 
borough  the  beautiful  portrait  of  Giuseppe  Marchi,  one  of  the 
treasures  belonging  to  the  Royal  Academy.  It  was 
altogether  too  much  for  the  ignorant  British  artists,  and 
it  excited  lively  comment.  What  chiefly  attracted  the 
public  notice,  however,  was  the  whole-length  portrait 
which  he  painted  of  his  friend  and  patron  Admiral 
Keppel.  On  the  appearance  of  this  Reynolds  was  not 
only  universally  acknowledged  to  be  at  the  head  of  his 
profession,  but  to  be  the  greatest  painter  that  England 
had  seen  since  Van  Dyck.  The  whole  interval,  as 
Malone  observes,  between  the  time  of  Charles  I.  and 
the  conclusion  of  the  reign  of  George  II.  seemed  to  be 
annihilated,  and  the  only  question  was  whether  the  new 
painter  or  Van  Dyck  were  the  more  excellent.  Rey- 
nolds very  soon  saw  how  much  animation  might  be 
obtained  by  deviating  from  the  insipid  manner  of  his 
immediate  predecessors,  and  instead  of  confining  him- 
self to  mere  likeness  he  dived,  as  it  were,  into  the  minds 
and  habits  and  manners  of  those  who  sat  to  him,  and 
accordingly  the  majority  of  his  portraits  are  so  appro- 
priate  and  characteristic  that  the  many  illustrious  per- 
sons whom  he  has  delineated  are  almost  as  well  known 
to  us  as  if  we  had  seen  and  conversed  with  them. 

Very  soon  after  his  return  from  Italy  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Dr  Johnson  commenced,  and  their  intimacy 
continued  uninterrupted  to  thetime  of  Johnson's  death. 
How  much  he  profited  thereby,  especially  in  the  prac- 
tice of  art,  he  has  recorded  in  a  paper  which  was  in- 
tended to  form  a  part  of  one  of  his  discourses  "I  re- 
member," he  writes,  "Mr  Burke  speaking  oftheEssays 
of  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  said  he  thought  them  the  best 
of  his  works.     Dr  Johnson  was  of  opinion  'that  their 

272 


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excellence  and  their  value  consisted  in  being  the  obser-  Reynolds 
vations  of  a  strong  mind  operating  upon  life  ;  and  in  and  Gains- 
consequence  you  find  there  what  you  seldom  find  in  borough 
other  books.'     It  is  this  kind  of  excellence  which  gives 
a  value  tothe  performances  of  artists  also . . .  The  obser- 
vations which  he  made  on  poetry,  on  life,  and  on  every- 
thing about  us,  I  applied  to  our  art ;  with  what  success 
others  must  judge.     Perhaps  an  artist  in  his  studies 
should  pursue  the  same  conduct,  and  instead  of  patch- 
ing up  a  particular  work  on  the  narrow  plan  of  imita- 
tion, rather  endeavour  to  acquire  the  art  and  power  of 
thinking." 

In  another  passage  from  his  memoranda,  quoted 
by  Malone,  Sir  Joshua  lets  us  into  some  more  of  the 
secrets  of  his  pre-eminence  in  his  art,  both  of  painter 
and  preceptor:  for  we  are  to  remember  that  the  British 
School  of  painting  owes  more  to  the  influence  of  Rey- 
nolds than  perhaps  any  other  school  to  the  example  of 
one  man: — 

"  I  considered  myself  as  playing  a  great  game,"  he 
writes,  "  and  instead  of  beginning  to  save  money,  I 
laid  it  out  faster  than  I  got  it  in,  purchasing  the  best 
examples  of  art  that  could  be  procured  ;  for  I  even 
borrowed  money  for  this  purpose.  The  possessing 
portraits  by  Titian,  Van  Dyck,  Rembrandt,  etc.,  I 
considered  as  the  best  kind  of  wealth.  By  studying 
carefully  the  works  of  great  masters,  this  advantage  is 
obtained — we  find  that  certain  niceties  of  expression 
are  capable  of  being  executed,  which  otherwise  we 
might  suppose  beyond  the  reach  of  art.  This  gives  us 
a  confidence  in  ourselves,  and  we  are  thus  incited  to 
endeavour  at  not  only  the  same  happiness  of  execution 
but  also  at  other  congenial  excellencies.  Study  indeed 
consists  in  learning  to  see  nature,  and  may  be  called 

s  273 


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colour,  I  tried  every  new  colour  ;  and  often,  as  is  well  Reynolds 
known,    failed.  .  .  .   My  fickleness   in    the  mode   oiandGains- 
colouring  arose  from  an  eager  desire  to  attain  the  high-  borough 
est  excellence." 

In  the  year  1759  Reynolds  began  to  write,  and 
three  of  his  essays  were  printed  in  the  Idler,  which  was 
conducted  by  Dr.  Johnson.  Northcote  records  that 
at  the  same  time  he  committed  to  paper  a  variety  of 
remarks  which  afterwards  served  him  as  hints  for  his 
discourses.  One  or  two  of  these  will  give  us  as  good 
an  idea  as  we  are  likely  to  get  from  elsewhere  of  what 
are  the  first  requisites  of  a  successful  painter. 

"  It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  a  painter,  as  the  first 
requisite,  should  endeavour  as  much  as  possible  to  form 
to  himself  an  idea  of  perfection  not  only  of  beauty,  but 
of  what  is  perfection  in  a  picture.  This  conception  he 
should  always  have  fixed  in  his  view,  and  unless  he  has 
this  view  we  shall  never  see  any  approaches  towards 
perfection  in  his  works  ;  for  it  will  not  come  by  chance. 

"If  a  man  has  nothing  of  that  which  is  called  genius, 
that  is,  if  he  is  not  carried  away,  if  I  may  so  say,  by 
the  animation,  the  fire  of  enthusiasm,  all  the  rules  in 
the  world  will  never  make  him  a  painter. 

11  He  who  possesses  genius  is  enabled  to  see  a  real 
value  in  those  things  which  others  disregard  and  over- 
look. He  perceives  a  difference  in  cases  where  inferior 
capacities  see  none  ;  as  the  fine  ear  for  music  can  dis- 
tinguish an  evident  variation  in  sounds  which  to 
another  ear  more  dull  seem  to  be  the  same.  This  ex- 
ample will  also  apply  to  the  eye  in  respect  to  colouring." 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1760,  Reynolds  moved 
into  the  house  on  the  west  side  of  Leicester  Square 
which  he  occupied  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  It  is  now  ten- 
anted by  Messrs.  Puttick  &  Simpson,  the  Auctioneers. 

275 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Reynolds  Northcote  has  usefully  recorded  the  following  details 
and  Gains- oi  his  studio.  His  painting-room  was  of  an  octa- 
borough  gonal  form,  about  twenty  feet  long  and  about  sixteen 
in  breath.  The  window  which  gave  the  light  to  this 
room  was  square,  and  not  much  larger  than  one  half 
the  size  of  a  common  window  in  a  private  house,  whilst 
the  lower  part  of  this  window  was  nine  feet  four  inches 
from  the  floor.  The  chair  for  his  sitters  was  raised 
eighteen  inches  from  the  floor,  and  turned  round  on 
castors.  His  palettes  were  those  which  are  held  by  a 
handle,  not  those  held  on  the  thumb.  The  sticks  of 
his  pencils  (brushes)  were  long,  measuring  about  nine- 
teen inches.  He  painted  in  that  part  of  the  room  near- 
est the  window,  and  never  sat  down  when  he  worked. 
As  the  actual  methods  of  a  great  artist  are  possibly  of 
more  value  in  a  history  of  painting  than  the  subjects, 
or  even  the  prices,  of  his  pictures,  I  venture  to  quote 
the  following  extracts  from  various  parts  of  Sir  Joshua's 
own  memoranda : — 

Never  give  the  least  touch  with  your  pencil  {i.e. 
brush)  till  you  have  present  in  your  mind  a  perfect  idea 
of  your  future  work. 

Paint  at  the  greatest  possible  distance  from  your 
sitter,  and  place  the  picture  .  .  .  near  to  the  sitter,  or 
sometimes  under  him,  so  as  to  see  both  together. 

In  beautiful  faces  keep  the  whole  circumference 
about  the  eye  in  a  mezzotinto,  as  seen  in  the  works  of 
Guido  and  the  best  of  Carlo  Maratti. 

Endeavour  to  look  at  the  subject  or  sitter  from 
which  you  are  painting,  as  if  it  was  a  picture.  This 
will  in  some  degree  render  it  more  easy  to  be  copied. 

In  painting  consider  the  object  before  you,  whatever 
it  may  be,  as  more  made  out  by  light  and  shadow  than 
by  lines. 

276 


The  English  School 


A  student  should  begin  his  career  by  a  careful  Reynolds 
finishing  and  making  out  the  parts  ;   as  practice  will  and  Gains- 
give  him  freedom  and  facility  of  hand  :    a  bold  and  borough 
unfinished    manner   is   commonly  the   habit   of  old 
age. 

On  painting  a  head — 

Let  those  parts  which  turn  or  retire  from  the  eye  be 
of  broken  or  mixed  colours,  as  being  less  distinguished 
and  nearer  the  borders. 

Let  all  your  shadows  be  of  one  colour :  glaze  them 
till  they  are  so. 

Use  red  colours  in  the  shadows  of  the  most  delicate 
complexions,  but  with  discretion. 

Contrive  to  have  a  screen  with  red  or  yellow  colour 
on  it,  to  reflect  the  light  on  the  shaded  part  of  the 
sitter's  face. 

Avoid  the  chalk,  the  brick  dust,  and  the  charcoal, 
and  think  on  a  pearl  and  a  ripe  peach. 

Avoid  long  continued  lines  in  the  eyes,  and  too 
many  sharp  ones. 

Take  care  to  give  your  figure  a  sweep  or  sway. 

Outlines  in  waves,  soft,  and  almost  imperceptible 
against  the  background. 

Never  make  the  contour  too  coarse. 

Avoid  also  those  outlines  and  lines  which  are  equal, 
which  make  parallels,  triangles,  etc. 

The  parts  which  are  nearest  to  the  eye  appear  most 
enlightened,  deeper  shadowed,  and  better  seen. 

Keep  broad  lights  and  shadows,  and  also  principal 
lights  and  shadows. 

Where  there  is  the  deepest  shadow  it  is  accom- 
panied by  the  brighest  light. 

Let  nothing  start  out  or  be  too  strong  for  its  place. 

Squareness  has  grandeur ;  it  gives  firmness  to  the 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

Reynolds  forms ;  a  serpentine  line  in  comparison  appears  feeble 
and Gains-  and  tottering. 
borough 

One  is  apt  to  forget  in  these  enlightened  days  how 
greatly  the  art  of  painting  benefited  by  the  establishment 
of  public  exhibitions.  Farington's  observations  on  this 
point,  occasioned  by  the  inauguration  of  the  exhibitions 
at  the  Society  of  Arts  from  1760,  until  the  foundation 
of  the  Royal  Academy  in  1768,  are  both  instructive  and 
amusing. 

''The  history  of  our  exhibitions,"  he  says  "affords 
the  strongest  evidence  of  their  impressive  effect  upon 
public  taste.  At  their  commencement,  though  men  of 
enlightened  minds  could  distinguish  and  appreciate 
what  was  excellent,  the  admiration  of  the  many  was 
confined  to  subjects  either  gross  or  puerile,  and  com- 
monly to  the  meanest  efforts  of  intellect ;  whereas  at 
this  time  (18 19)  the  whole  train  of  subjects  most  popu- 
lar in  the  earlier  exhibitions  have  disappeared.  The 
loaf  and  cheese  that  could  provoke  hunger,  the  cat  and 
canary  bird,  and  the  dead  mackerel  on  a  deal  board, 
have  long  ceased  to  produce  astonishment  and  delight; 
while  truth  of  imitation  nowfinds  innumerableadmirers 
though  combined  with  the  highest  qualities  of  beauty, 
grandeur  and  taste. 

"To  our  public  exhibitions,  and  to  arrangements 
that  followed  in  consequence  of  their  introduction  this 
change  must  be  chiefly  attributed.  The  present  gener- 
ation appears  to  be  composed  of  a  new  and,  at  least 
with  respect  to  the  arts,  a  superior  order  of  beings. 
Generally  speaking,  their  thoughts,  their  feelings  and 
language,  differ  entirely  from  what  they  were  sixty 
years  ago.  The  state  of  the  public  mind,  incapable  of 
discriminating  excellence  from  inferiority  proved  in- 

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The  English  School 


controvertibly  that  a  right  sense  of  art  in  the  spectator  Reynolds 
can  only  be  acquired  by  long  and  frequent  observation,  and  Gains- 
and  that  without  proper  opportunities  to  improve  the  borough 
mind  and  the  eye,  a  nation  would  continue  insensible 
of  the  true  value  of  the  fine  arts." 

In  view  of  these  very  pertinent  observations  it  is 
worth  inquiring  a  little  as  to  the  origin  of  exhibitions  in 
England,  and  the  stimulus  given  by  them  to  British  art 
before  the  institution  of  the  Royal  Academy.  From  the 
introduction  to  book  written  by  Edward  Edwards,  in 
continuation  of  Walpole's  "Anecdotes  of  Painters,"  and 
published  in  1808,  I  extract  the  following  account  of 
them,  as  far  as  possible  using  his  own  quaint 
phraseology. 

Although  the  study  of  the  human  form  had  long 
been  cultivated  and  encouraged  in  Italy  and  France  by 
national  schools  or  academies,  yet  in  England  until  the 
eighteenth  century  such  seminaries  were  unknown;  and 
it  is  therefore  difficult  to  trace  the  origin  or  ascertain  the 
precise  period  when  those  nurseries  of  art  were  first 
attempted  in  this  country,  especially  as  every  establish- 
ment of  that  kind  was,  at  first,  of  a  private  and  temporary 
nature,  depending  chiefly  upon  the  protection  of  some 
artist  of  rank  and  reputation  in  his  day.  The  first  at- 
tempt towards  the  establishment  of  an  academy  is 
mentioned  by  Walpole  as  having  been  formed  by  several 
artists  under  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  in  171 1.  Afterwards 
we  find,  by  other  accounts  in  the  same  author,  which  are 
corroborated  by  authentic  information,  that  Sir  James 
Thornhill  formed  an  academy  in  his  own  house,  in  the 
Piazza,  Covent  Garden.  But  this  was  not  of  long  dura- 
tion, for  it  commenced  in  1724  and  died  in  1734;  which 
reduced  the  artists  again  to  seek  some  new  seminary ; 
for  the  public  of  that  day  were  so  little  acquainted  with 

279 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Reynolds  the  use  of  such  schools,  that  theywere  even  suspected  of 
and  Gains-  being  held  for  immoral  purposes. 

borough  After  the  death  of  Thornhill  a  few  of  the  artists 
(chiefly  foreigners),  finding  themselves  without  the 
necessary  example  of  the  living  model,  formed  a  small 
society  and  established  their  regular  meetings  of  study 
in  a  convenient  apartment  in  Greyhound  Court,  Arundel 
Street.  The  principal  conductor  of  this  school  was 
Michael  Moser,  who  when  the  Royal  Academy  was  es- 
tablished was  appointed  keeper.  Here  they  were  visited 
by  artists  such  as  Hogarth,  Wills,  and  Ellis,  who  were 
so  well  pleased  with  the  propriety  of  their  conduct,  and 
so  thoroughly  convinced  of  the  utility  of  the  institution, 
that  a  general  union  took  place,  and  the  members  there- 
by becoming  numerous,  they  required  and  sought  for  a 
more  convenient  situation  and  accommodation  for  their 
school.  By  the  year  1739  they  were  settled  in  Peter's 
Court,  St  Martin's  Lane,  where  the  study  of  the  human 
figure  was  carried  on  till  1767,  when  they  removed  to 
Pall  Mall. 

But  a  permanent  andconspicuous  establishment  was 
still  wanting,  and  on  this  account  the  principal  artists 
had  several  meetings  with  a  view  to  forming  a  public 
academy.  This  they  did  not  succeed  in  doing;  but  they 
were  so  far  from  being  discouraged  that  they  continued 
their  meetings  and  their  studies,  and  the  next  effort  they 
made  towards  acquiring  the  attention  of  the  public  was 
connected  with  the  Foundling  Hospital.  This  institu- 
tion was  incorporated  in  1739,  and  a  few  years  later  the 
present  building  was  erected;  but  as  the  income  of  the 
charity  could  not,  with  propriety,  be  expended  upon  de- 
corations, many  of  the  principal  artists  of  that  day  volun- 
tarily exerted  their  talents  for  the  purpose  of  ornament- 
ing several  apartments  of  the  Hospital  which  otherwise 

280 


The  English  School 


must  have  remained  without  decoration.   The  pictures  Reynolds 
thus  produced,  and  generously  given,  were  permitted  to  and  Gains- 
bo,  seen  by  any  visitor  upon  proper  application.    The  borough 
spectacle  was  so  new  that  it  made  a  considerable  impres- 
sion upon  the  public,  and  the  favourable  reception  these 
works  experienced  impressed  the  artists  with  an  idea  of 
forming  a  public  exhibition,  which  scheme  was  carried 
into  full  effect  with  the  help  of  the  Society  for  the  En- 
couragement of  Arts,  Manufactures  and  Commerce,  who 
lent  their  great  room  for  the  purpose. 

The  success  of  this,  the  first,  public  display  of  art 
was  more  than  equal  to  the  general  expectation.  Yet 
there  were  some  circumstances,  consequent  to  the 
arrangement  of  the  pictures,  with  which  the  artists  were 
very  justly  dissatisfied;  they  were  occasioned  by  the 
following  improprieties.  The  Society  in  the  same  year 
had  offered  premiums  for  the  best  painting  of  history 
and  landscape,  and  it  was  one  of  the  conditions  that  the 
pictures  produced  by  the  candidates  should  remain  in 
their  great  room  for  a  certain  time;  consequently  they 
were  blended  with  the  rest,  and  formed  part  of  the  ex- 
hibition. As  soon  as  it  was  known  which  performances 
had  obtained  the  premiums,  it  was  naturally  supposed, 
by  such  persons  who  were  deficient  in  judgment,  that 
those  pictures  were  the  best  in  the  room,  and  conse- 
quently deserved  the  chief  attention.  This  partial,  though 
unmerited,  selection  gave  displeasure  to  the  artists  in 
general.  Nor  were  they  pleased  with  the  mode  of  admit- 
ting the  spectators,  for  every  member  of  the  Society  had 
the  discretionary  privilege  of  introducing  as  many 
persons  as  he  chose,  by  means  of  gratuitous  tickets ;  and 
consequently  the  company  was  far  from  being  select,  or 
suited  to  the  wishes  of  the  exhibition.  These  circum- 
stances, together  with  the  interference  of  the  Society  in 

281 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Reynolds  the  concern  of  the  exhibition,  determined  the  principal 
and  Gains-  artists  to  withdraw  themselves,  which  they  did  in  the 
borough  next  year. 

Encouraged  by  the  success  of  their  first  attempt, 
they  engaged  the  great  room  in  Spring  Garden,  and 
their  first  exhibition  at  that  place  opened  on  the  9th  May 
1 76 1.  Here  they  found  it  necessary  to  change  their  mode 
of  admission,  which  they  did  by  making  the  catalogue 
the  ticket  of  admission;  consequently  one  catalogue 
would  admit  a  whole  family  in  succession,  for  a  shilling, 
which  was  its  price ;  but  this  mode  of  admittance  was 
still  productive  of  crowd  and  disorder,  and  it  was  there- 
fore altered  the  next  year.  This  exhibition,  which  was 
the  second  in  this  country,  contained  several  works  of 
the  best  English  artists,  among  which  many  of  the  pic- 
tures were  equal  to  any  masters  then  living  in  Europe  ; 
and  so  strikingly  conspicuous  were  their  merits,  and  so 
forcible  was  the  effect  of  this  display  of  art,  that  it  drew 
from  the  pen  of  Roubilliac,  the  sculptor,  the  following 
lines,  which  were  stuck  up  in  the  exhibition  room,  and 
were  also  printed  in  the  St  James  s  Chronicle : — 

Pretendu  Connoiseur  qui  sur  l'Antique  glose, 
Idolatrant  le  horn,  sans  connoitre  la  Chose, 
Vrai  Peste  des  beaux  Arts,  sans  Gout  sans  Equite, 
Quitez  ce  ton  pedant,  ce  mepris  affect^, 
Pour  tout  ce  que  le  Terns  n'a  pas  encore  gate. 

Ne  peus  tu  pas,  en  admirant 

Les  Maitres  de  la  Grece,  ceux  d  l'ltalie 

Rendre  justice  6galement 

A  ceux  qu'a  nourris  ta  Patrie? 

Vois  ce  Salon,  et  tu  perdras 
Cette  prevention  injuste, 
Et  bien  etonne*  conviendras 
Qu'il  ne  faut  pas  qu'un  Mecenas 
Pour  revoir  le  Siecle  d'Auguste. 
282 


The  English  School 


"  In  the  following  season,"  says  Edwards,  "  they  Reynolds 
ventured  to  fix  the  price  of  admission  at  one  shilling  and  Gains- 
each  person,  but  had  the  precaution  to  affix  a  conciliatory  borough 
preface  to  their  catalogue,  which  was  given  gratis."  As 
it  is  becoming  more  and  more  usual  of  late  years  to  pre- 
face a  catalogue  with  a  signed  article,  or,  as  in  a  recent 
instance,  a  facsimile  letter,  it  is  interesting  to  know  that 
this  "  conciliatory  preface  "  was  written  by  Dr  Johnson. 
As  a  document  its  value  in  the  history  of  the  British 
School  of  Painting  demands  its  reproduction  here  in 
full  :— 

"The  public  may  justly  require  to  be  informed  of  the 
nature  and  extent  of  every  design  for  which  the  favour 
of  the  public  is  openly  solicited.  The  artists  who  were 
themselves  the  first  promoters  of  an  exhibition  in  this 
nation,  and  who  have  now  contributed  to  the  following 
catalogue,  think  it  therefore  necessary  to  explain  their 
purpose,  and  justify  their  conduct.  An  exhibition  of  the 
works  of  art  being  a  spectacle  new  in  this  kingdom,  has 
raised  variousopinions  and  conjectures  amongthosewho 
are  unacquainted  with  the  practice  in  foreign  nations. 
Those  who  set  their  performances  to  general  view,  have 
been  too  often  considered  as  the  rivals  of  each  other ;  as 
men  actuated,  if  not  by  avarice,  at  least  by  vanity,  and 
contending  for  superiority  of  fame,  though  not  for  a 
pecuniary  prize.  It  cannot  be  denied  or  doubted,  that  all 
who  offer  themselves  to  criticism  are  desirous  of  praise  ; 
this  desire  is  not  only  innocent  but  virtuous,  while  it  is 
undebased  by  artifice,  and  unpolluted  by  envy;  and  of 
envy  or  artifice  those  men  can  never  be  accused,  who 
already  enjoying  all  the  honours  and  profits  of  their  pro- 
fession are  content  to  stand  candidates  for  public  notice, 
with  genius  yet  unexperienced,  and  diligence  yet  un- 
rewarded ;  who  without  any  hope  of  increasing  their  own 

283 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

Reynolds  reputation  or  interest,  expose  their  names  and  their 
and  Gains-  works,  only  that  they  may  furnish  an  opportunity  of  ap- 
borough  pearance  to  the  young,  the  diffident,  and  the  neglected. 
The  purpose  of  this  exhibition  is  not  to  enrich  the  artist, 
but  to  advance  the  art;  the  eminent  are  not  flattered  with 
preference,  nor  the  obscure  insulted  with  contempt; 
whoever  hopes  to  deserve  public  favour,  is  here  invited 
to  display  his  merit.  Of  the  price  put  upon  this  exhibi- 
tion some  account  may  be  demanded.  Whoever  sets 
his  work  to  be  shewn,  naturally  desires  a  multitude  of 
spectators;  but  his  desire  defeats  its  own  end,  when 
spectators  assemble  in  such  numbers  as  to  obstruct  one 
another. 

"Though  we  are  far  from  wishing  to  diminish  the 
pleasures,  or  to  depreciate  the  sentiments  of  any  class  of 
the  community,  we  know,  however,  what  every  one 
knows,  that  all  cannot  be  judges  or  purchasers  of  works 
of  art.  Yet  we  have  already  found  by  experience,  that  all 
are  desirous  to  see  an  exhibition.  When  the  terms  of 
admission  were  low,  our  room  was  throng'd  with  such 
multitudes,  as  made  access  dangerous,  and  frightened 
away  those,  whose  approbation  was  most  desired. 

M  Yet  because  it  is  seldom  believed  that  money  is 
got  but  for  the  love  of  money,  we  shall  tell  the  use  which 
we  intend  to  make  of  our  expected  profits.  Many  artists 
of  great  abilities  are  unable  to  sell  their  works  for  their 
due  price;  to  remove  this  inconvenience,  an  annual  sale 
will  be  appointed,  to  which  every  man  may  send  his 
works,  and  send  them,  if  he  will,  without  his  name. 
These  works  will  be  reviewed  by  the  committee  that 
conduct  the  exhibition;  a  price  will  be  secretly  set  on 
every  piece,  and  registered  by  the  secretary;  if  the  piece 
exposed  for  sale  is  sold  for  more,  the  whole  price  shall 
be  the  artist's;  but  if  the  purchasers  value  it  at  less  than 

284 


PLATE  XL.— SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 

THE  AGE  OF  INNOCENCE 

National  Gallery,  London 


The  English  School 


the  committee,  the  artist  shall  be  paid  the  deficiency  Reynolds 

from  the  profits  of  the  exhibition."  and  Gains- 

borough 

This  mode  of  admission  was  found  to  answer  all  the 
wished-for  purposes,  and  the  visitors,  who  were  highly- 
respectable,  were  also  perfectly  gratified  with  the  display 
of  art,  which,  for  the  first  time,  they  beheld  with  ease 
and  pleasure  to  themselves. 

Theexhibition,thus  established,  continued  at  Spring 
Garden  Room,  under  the  direction  and  management  of 
the  principal  artists  by  whom  it  was  first  promoted,  and 
they  were  soon  also  joined  by  many  of  those  who  had 
continued  to  exhibit  in  the  Strand  {i.e.  at  the  Society  of 
Arts,  etc.),  which  party  being  mostly  composed  of  young 
men,  and  others  who  chose  to  become  candidates  for 
the  premiums  given  by  the  Society,  thought  it  prudent 
to  remain  under  their  protection.  But  the  Society  find- 
ing that  those  who  continued  with  them  began  to 
diminish  in  their  numbers,  and  that  the  exhibition 
interfered  with  their  own  concerns,  no  longer  indulged 
them  with  the  use  of  their  room,  and  the  exhibitions  at 
that  place  terminated  in  1764.  These  artists,  who  were 
mostly  the  younger  part  of  the  profession  at  that  time, 
thereupon  engaged  a  large  room  in  Maiden  Lane,  where 
they  exhibited  in  1765  and  1766.  But  this  situation  not 
being  favourable,  they  engaged  with  Mr  Christie,  in 
building  his  room  near  Pall  Mall,  and  the  agreement 
was  that  they  should  have  it  for  their  use  during  one 
month  every  year,  in  the  spring.  Here  they  contrived  to 
support  a  feeble  exhibition  for  eight  years,  when  their 
engagements  interfering  with  Mr  Christie's  auctions, 
he  purchased  their  share  of  the  premises,  and  they  made 
their  last  removal  to  a  room  in  S.  Alban's  Street,  where 
they  exhibited  the  next  season,  but  never  after  attempted 

285 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Reynolds  to  attract  public  notice.  It  may  be  observed  that  while 
and  Gains-  this  Society  continued  there  were  annually  three  exhibi- 
borough  tions  of  the  works  of  English  artists,  namely,  the  Royal 
Academy,  the  Chartered  Society,  and  that  last  men- 
tioned, the  members  of  which  styled  themselves  the 
Free  Society  of  Artists.  Their  exhibition  was  consider- 
ably inferior  to  those  of  their  rivals.  By  the  Chartered 
Society,  Edwards  means  the  artists  who  formed  the  ex- 
hibition at  the  Spring  Garden  Room,  who  in  1765 
obtained  a  Charter  from  the  king.  Owing  partly  to 
internal  disagreements,  but  more  no  doubt  to  the 
foundation  of  the  Royal  Academy  in  1768,  this  Society 
gradually  diminished  in  importance,  until  Edwards 
could  write  of  their  exhibition  in  1791  that  "the  articles 
they  had  then  collected  were  very  insignificant,  most  of 
which  could  not  be  considered  as  works  of  art;  such  as 
pieces  of  needlework,  subjects  in  human  hair,  cut  paper, 
and  such  similar  productions  as  deserve  not  the  recom- 
mendation of  a  public  exhibition." 

To  the  first  exhibition  of  the  Royal  Academy,  which 
was  opened  on  the  2nd  of  January  1769,  Reynolds  sent 
three  pictures : — 

The  Duchess  of  Manchester  and  her  son,  as  Diana 
disarming  Cupid. 

Lady  Blake,  as  Juno  receiving  the  Cestus  of  Venus. 

Miss  Morris  as  Hope  nursing  Love. 

That  all  of  them  were,  so  to  speak,  "fancy  portraits" 
is  not  entirely  without  significance.  Portraiture,  the 
painter's  bread  and  butter,  was  apparently  deemed 
hardly  suitable  for  the  occasion,  and  among  a  list  of 
the  pictures  which  attracted  most  attention  Northcote 
only  includes  the  portraits  of  the  King  and  Queen  by 
Nathaniel  Dance,  Lady  Molyneux  by  Gainsborough, 

286 


The  English  School 


and  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  by  Cotes.     The  rest  are  as  Reynolds 
follows  : — The  Departure  of  Regulus  from  Rome,  and  and  Gains- 
Venus  lamenting  the  Death  of  Adonis,  by  Benjamin  borough 
West;  Hector  and Andromache,  and  Venus  directing 
Aeneas  and  Achates,  by  Angelica  Kauffmann ;   A 
Piping  Boy,  and  A  Candlelight  Piece,  by  Nathaniel 
Hone;     An    Altar-Piece  of   the   Annunciation   by 
Cipriani ;  Hebe,  and  A  Boy  Playing  Cricket,  by  Cotes ; 
A  landscape   by  Barrett,  and  Shakespeare 's  Black- 
smith, by  Penny. 

In  all,  Reynolds  exhibited  two  hundred  and  fifty- 
two  pictures  during  the  thirty-two  years  of  his  life  in 
which  exhibitions  existed,  namely  from  1760  to  1791 ; 
of  which  two  hundred  and  twenty-eight  went  to  the 
Royal  Academy. 

Of  these,  or  most  of  them,  ample  records  and  criti- 
cisms may  be  found  in  the  copious  literature  which 
has  grown  up  around  his  name.  For  our  present  pur- 
pose a  glance  at  his  influence,  his  methods,  and  his 
circumstances  has  seemed  to  me  to  be  more  in  point, 
and  as  a  succinct  estimate  of  the  man  and  his  work 
from  one  of  his  most  illustrious  contemporaries,  the  fol- 
lowing passage  may  be  added  by  way  of  conclusion: — 

"  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,"  wrote  Edmund  Burke  six 
years  after  the  painter's  death,  "was  on  very  many 
accounts  one  of  the  most  memorable  men  of  his  time. 
He  was  the  first  Englishman  who  added  the  praise  of 
the  elegant  arts  to  the  other  glories  of  his  country.  In 
taste,  in  grace,  in  facility,  in  happy  invention,  and  in 
the  richness  and  harmony  of  colouring,  he  was  equal 
to  the  great  masters  of  the  renowned  ages.  In  por- 
traiture he  went  beyond  them,  for  he  communicated  to 
that  description  of  the  art,  in  which  English  artists  are 
the  most  engaged,  a  fancy  and  a  dignity  derived  from 

287 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Reynolds  the  higher  branches,  which  even  those  who  professed, 
and  Gains-  them  in  a  superior  manner,  did  not  always  preserve 
borough  when  they  delineated  individual  nature.  His  portraits 
remind  the  spectator  of  the  invention  of  history  and  the 
amenity  of  landscape.  In  painting  portraits  he  ap- 
peared not  to  be  raised  upon  that  platform,  but  to 
descend  to  it  from  a  higher  sphere.  His  paintings  illus- 
trate hislessons,  and  hislessons  seem  to  be  derived  from 
his  paintings.  He  possessed  the  theory  as  perfectly  as 
the  practice  of  his  art.  To  be  such  a  painter,  he  was 
a  profound  and  penetrating  philosopher." 

Thomas  Gainsborough  (i 727-1 788),  whose  name 
we  can  seldom  help  thinking  of  whenever  we  hear  that 
of  Reynolds,  was  in  many  ways  the  very  antithesis  of 
his  more  illustrious  rival.  In  his  private  life  he  most 
certainly  was,  and  so  far  as  his  practical  influence  on 
his  contemporaries  is  concerned,  he  is  altogether  over- 
shadowed by  the  first  President  of  the  Royal  Academy. 
With  respect  to  their  works  there  is  a  diversity  of 
opinion,  and  it  is  largely  a  matter  of  personal  feeling 
whether  we  prefer  those  of  the  one  or  of  the  other. 
Both  were  great  artists,  and  on  the  common  ground 
of  portraiture  they  contended  so  equally,  and  in  some 
cases  with  such  similarity  of  method,  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say  impartially  which  was  the  greater.  How 
is  it  possible  to  decide  except  on  the  ground  of  indi- 
vidual taste,  as  to  whether  we  would  rather  lose  Gains- 
borough or  Reynolds  as  a  portrait  painter,  without 
considering  for  a  moment  that  the  former  was  a  great 
landscape  painter  as  well  ?  And,  putting  aside  Wilson, 
whose  landscape  was  essentially  Italian,  whether  exe- 
cuted in  Italy  or  not,  the  first  landscape  painter  in 
England  was  Gainsborough.     We  are  so  accustomed 

288 


The  English  School 


to  bracket  him  with  Reynolds  as  a  great  portrait  Reynolds 
painter,  so  thrilled  over  the  sale  of  a  Gainsborough  and  Gains- 
portrait  for  many  thousands  of  pounds,  that  we  are  apt  borough 
to  forget  him  altogether  as  a  landscape  painter.  And 
yet  two  or  three  of  his  best  works  in  the  National 
Gallery  are  landscapes,  and  two  of  them  at  least  famous 
ones — The  Market  Cart  and  The  "Watering  Place. 
How  many  more  beautiful  landscapes  by  him  there 
must  be  in  existence  it  is  impossible  to  say,  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  there  are  not  a  few  which  are  only 
waiting  their  turn  for  a  fashionable  market,  but  are  now 
reposing  unappreciated  in  private  hands.  In  the  Met- 
ropolitan Museum  at  New  York  is  a  splendid  example, 
the  like  of  which  I  have  never  seen  in  this  country,  but 
which  is  so  much  closer  in  feeling  to  his  numerous 
drawings  and  sketches  in  chalk  or  pencil  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  believe  that  no  similar  examples  exist.  If 
we  could  only  bring  them  to  light ! 

The  fact  is  that  the  state  of  society  in  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  was,  with  all  its  brilliance 
and  intellect,  the  cause  of  hampering  the  natural  de- 
velopment of  the  three  great  painters  of  that  period. 
Reynolds  came  back  from  his  stay  in  Italy  an  ardent 
disciple  of  the  grand  style,  burning  to  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  Raphael  and  Michelangelo.  Romney,  too, 
was  all  for  Italian  art,  but  looked  further  back,  and 
worshipped  the  classics.  Gainsborough  was  a  born 
landscape  painter,  and  his  whole  time  was  devoted, 
when  he  was  not  executing  commissions  for  portraits, 
to  making  sketches  and  studies  of  woods  and  valleys 
and  trees.  But  so  bent  on  having  their  likenesses 
handed  about  were  the  brilliant  personages  of  their 
time,  that  Reynolds,  Gainsborough  and  Romney  were 
compelled  in  spite  of  themselves  to  turn  their  attention 

t  289 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Reynolds  to  portraiture,  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other  branch 
and  Gains-  of  their  art,  and  as  portrait  painters  they  have  made 
borough  themselves  and  their  country  famous. 

In  the  numerous  sketches  and  studies  that  Gains- 
borough has  left  us,  we  can  see  how  much  we  have 
lost  in  gaining  his  wonderful  portraits.  He  loved  land- 
scape, from  his  earliest  youth  to  his  dying  day.  Loved 
it  for  itself.  For  among  all  the  drawings  of  his  which 
I  have  ever  seen,  I  do  not  remember  one  which  can  be 
identified  as  any  particular  place.  In  the  eighteenth 
century  there  was  a  perfect  mania  among  the  smaller 
fry  for  making  topographical  drawings,  in  pencil  or 
water-colour,  views  of  some  town  or  mountain  or  castle. 
But  with  Gainsborough  the  place  was  nothing — it  was 
the  spirit  of  it  that  charmed  him.  A  cottage  in  a  wood, 
a  glade,  a  country  road,  a  valley,  was  to  him  a  beauti- 
ful scene,  whatever  it  was  called  or  wherever  it  hap- 
pened to  be,  and  out  of  it  accordingly  he  made  a  beauti- 
ful picture,  or  at  least  a  drawing.  That  his  pictures  of 
landscape  are  so  extraordinarily  few  while  his  drawings 
are  so  numerous,  may  be  accounted  for  in  a  great 
measure  by  the  exigences  of  portrait  painting,  but  not 
entirely ;  and  the  probability  is  that  there  are  many 
more  which  are  now  forgotten. 

For  an  estimate  of  Thomas  Gainsborough  both  in 
regard  to  his  place  in  the  story  of  the  English  School 
and  to  the  abilities  and  methods  by  which  he  attained 
it,  it  is  needless  to  look  elsewhere  than  to  that  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds,  contained  in  the  discourse  delivered 
shortly  after  Gainsborough's  death: — 

"When  such  a  man  as  Gainsborough  rises  to  great 
fame  without  the  assistance  of  an  academical  education, 
without  travelling  to  Italy,  or  any  of  those  preparatory 
studies  which  have  been  sooften  recommended,  he  ispro- 

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THE  MARKET  CART 

National  Gallery,  London 


The  English  School 


duced  as  an  instance  how  little  such  studies  are  neces-  Reynolds 
sary,  since  so  great  excellence  may  be  acquired  with-  and  Gains- 
out  them.     This  is  an  inference  not  warranted  by  the  borough 
success  of  any  individual,  and  I  trust  that  it  will  not 
be  thought  that  I  wish  to  make  this  use  of  it. 

"It  must  be  remembered  that  the  style  and  depart- 
ment of  art  which  Gainsborough  chose,  and  in  which 
he  so  much  excelled,  did  not  require  that  he  should  go 
out  of  his  own  country  for  the  objects  of  his  study ;  they 
were  everywhere  about  him ;  he  found  them  in  the 
streets,  and  in  the  fields;  and  from  the  models  thus 
accidentally  found  he  selected  with  great  judgment  such 
as  suited  his  purpose.  As  his  studies  were  directed  to 
the  living  world  principally,  he  did  not  pay  a  general 
attention  to  the  works  of  the  various  masters,  though 
they  are,  in  my  opinion,  always  of  great  use  even  when 
the  character  of  our  subject  requires  us  to  depart  from 
some  of  their  principles.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  ex- 
cellence in  the  department  of  the  art  which  he  professed 
may  exist  without  them,  that  in  such  subjects  and  in 
the  manner  that  belongs  to  them  the  want  of  them  is 
supplied,  and  more  than  supplied,  by  natural  sagacity 
and  a  minute  observation  of  particular  nature.  If 
Gainsborough  did  not  look  at  nature  with  a  poet's 
eye,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  he  saw  her  with  the 
eye  of  a  painter ;  and  gave  a  faithful,  if  not  a  poetical, 
representation  of  what  he  had  before  him. 

"Though  he  did  not  much  attend  to  the  works  of 
the  great  historical  painters  of  former  ages,  yet  he  was 
well  aware  that  the  language  of  the  art — the  art  of  imi- 
tation— must  be  learned  somewhere;  and  as  he  knew 
he  could  not  learn  it  in  an  equal  degree  from  his  con- 
temporaries, he  very  judiciously  applied  himself  to  the 
Flemish  school,  who  are  undoubtedly  the  greatest  mas- 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Reynolds  ters  of  one  necessary  branch  of  art,  and  he  did  not  need 
and  Gains-  to  go  out  of  his  country  for  examples  of  that  school ; 
borough  from  that  he  learned  the  harmony  of  colouring,  the 
management  and  disposition  of  light  and  shadow,  and 
every  means  of  it  which  the  masters  practised  to  orna- 
ment and  give  splendour  to  their  works.  And  to  satisfy 
himself,  as  well  as  others,  how  well  he  knew  the  mech- 
anism and  artifice  which  they  employed  to  bring  out  that 
tone  of  colour  which  we  so  much  admire  in  their  works, 
he  occasionally  made  copies  from  Rubens,  Teniers 
and  Van  Dyck,  which  it  would  be  no  disgrace  to  the 
most  accurate  connoisseur  to  mistake  at  the  first  sight 
for  the  works  of  those  masters.  What  he  thus  learned 
he  applied  to  the  originals  of  nature,  which  he  saw  with 
his  own  eyes,  and  imitated  not  in  the  manner  of  those 
masters  but  in  his  own. 

"Whether  he  most  excelled  in  portraits,  land- 
scapes, or  fancy  pictures,  it  is  difficult  to  determine ; 
whether  his  portraits  were  most  admirable  for  exact 
truth  of  resemblance,  or  his  landscapes  for  a  portrait- 
like representation  of  nature,  such  as  we  see  in  the 
works  of  Rubens,  Ruisdael,  or  others  of  those  schools. 
In  his  fancy  pictures,  when  he  had  fixed  on  his  object 
of  imitation,  whether  it  was  the  mean  and  vulgar  form 
of  the  woodcutter,  or  a  child  of  an  interesting  charac- 
ter, as  he  did  not  attempt  to  raise  the  one,  so  neither 
did  he  lose  any  of  the  natural  grace  and  elegance  of  the 
other  ;  such  a  grace  and  such  an  elegance  as  are  more 
frequently  found  in  cottages  than  in  courts.  This  ex- 
cellence was  his  own,  the  result  of  his  particular  ob- 
servation and  taste ;  for  this  he  was  certainly  not 
indebted  to  the  Flemish  school,  nor  indeed  to  any 
school ;  for  his  grace  was  not  academic,  or  antique,  but 
selected  by  himself  from  the  great  school  of  nature.  .  .  . 

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The  English  School 


"  Upon  the  whole  we  may  justly  say  that  whatever  Reynolds 
he  attempted  he  carried  to  a  high  degree  of  excellence,  and  Gains- 
It  is  to  the  credit  of  his  good  sense  and  judgment  that  borough 
he  never  did  attempt  that  style  of  historical  painting 
for  which  his  previous  studies  had  made  no  preparation. 

"  The  peculiarity  of  his  manner  or  style,"  Reynolds 
continues  a  little  later,  "  or  we  may  call  it  the  language 
in  which  he  expressed  his  ideas,  has  been  considered 
by  many  as  his  greatest  defect.  ...  A  novelty  and 
peculiarity  of  manner,  as  it  is  often  a  cause  of  our  ap- 
probation, so  likewise  it  is  often  a  ground  of  censure, 
as  being  contrary  to  the  practice  of  other  painters,  in 
whose  manner  we  have  been  initiated,  and  in  whose 
favour  we  have  perhaps  been  prepossessed  from  our  in- 
fancy :  for  fond  as  we  are  of  novelty,  we  are  upon  the 
whole  creatures  of  habit.  However,  it  is  certain  that 
all  those  odd  scratches  and  marks  which  on  a  close  ex- 
amination are  soobservable  in  Gainsborough's  pictures, 
and  which  even  to  experienced  painters  appear  rather 
the  effect  of  accident  than  design  ;  this  chaos,  this  un- 
couth and  shapeless  appearance,  by  a  kind  of  magic, 
at  a  certain  distance  assumes  form,  and  all  the  parts 
seem  to  drop  into  their  proper  places  ;  so  that  we  can  • 

hardly  refuse  acknowledging  the  full  effect  of  dili- 
gence under  the  appearance  of  chance  and  hasty 
negligence. 

"That  Gainsborough  himself  considered  this  peculi- 
arity in  his  manner,  and  the  power  it  possesses  of  ex- 
citing surprise,  as  a  beauty  in  his  works,  I  think  may 
be  inferred  from  the  eager  desire  which  we  know  he 
always  expressed,  that  his  pictures  at  the  exhibition 
should  be  seen  near  as  well  as  at  a  distance. 

"The  slightness  which  we  see  in  his  best  works 
cannot  always  be  imputed  to  negligence.     However 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Reynolds  they  may  appear  to  superficial  observers,  painters  know 
and  Gains-  very  well  that  a  steady  attention  to  the  general  effect 
borough  takes  up  more  time  and  is  much  more  laborious  to  the 
mind  than  any  mode  of  high  finishing  or  smoothness 
without  such  attention.  His  handling,  the  manner  of 
leaving  the  colours,  or,  in  other  words,  the  methods  he 
used  for  producing  the  effect,  had  very  much  the 
appearance  of  the  work  of  an  artist  who  had  never 
learnt  from  others  the  usual  and  regular  practice  be- 
longing to  the  art ;  but  still,  like  a  man  of  strong  intui- 
tive perception  of  what  was  required,  he  found  a  way 
of  his  own  to  accomplish  his  purpose." 

To  Reynolds's  opinion  of  this  technique  as  applied 
to  portraits,  we  may  listen  with  even  more  attention. 
M  It  must  be  allowed,"  he  continues,  M  that  this  hatch- 
ing manner  of  Gainsborough  did  very  much  contribute 
to  the  lightness  of  effect  which  is  so  eminent  a  beauty 
in  his  pictures  ;  as,  on  the  contrary,  much  smoothness 
and  uniting  the  colours  is  apt  to  produce  heaviness. 
Every  artist  must  have  remarked  how  often  that  light- 
ness of  hand  which  was  in  his  dead-colour  (or  first 
painting)  escaped  in  the  finishing  when  he  had  deter- 
mined the  parts  with  more  precision  ;  and  another  loss 
which  he  often  experiences,  which  is  of  greater  conse- 
quence :  while  he  is  employed  in  the  detail,  the  effect 
of  the  whole  together  is  either  forgotten  or  neglected. 
The  likeness  of  a  portrait,  as  I  have  formerly  observed, 
consists  more  in  preserving  the  general  effect  of  the 
countenance  than  in  the  most  minute  finishing  of  the 
features  or  any  of  the  particular  parts.  Now,  Gains- 
borough's portraits  were  often  little  more  in  regard  to 
finishing  or  determining  the  form  of  the  features,  than 
what  generally  attends  a  first  painting  ;  but  as  he  was 
always  attentive  to  the  general  effect,  or  whole  together, 

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The  English  School 

I  have  often  imagined  that  this  unfinished  manner  Reynolds 
contributed   even  to   that   striking   resemblance   for  and  Gains- 
which  his  portraits  are  so  remarkable."  borough 


IV 

THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Not  until  the  year  of  Gainsborough's  death,  1788, 
was  there  born  another  landscape  painter.  This  was 
John  Crome,  and  he  too  came  from  the  east  of  Eng- 
land, nearest  to  Holland,  being  born  in  Norfolk,  the 
neighbouring  county  to  Gainsborough's  native  Suffolk. 
Within  ten  years  more,  two  still  greater  landscapists 
were  born,  also  in  the  east,  Constable  in  Essex,  still 
closer  to  Sudbury,  and  Turner  in  London. 

John  Crome — Old  Crome,  as  he  is  usually  called  to 
distinguish  him  from  his  less  distinguished  son,  John 
Bernay  Crome — was  born  at  Norwich,  and  had  to  sup- 
port himself  most  of  his  life  by  teaching  drawing,  not 
to  professional  pupils  unfortunately ;  but  incidentally 
he  founded  "The  Norwich  School"  of  landscape 
painters,  who  loyally  carried  forward  the  traditions  he 
had  inculcated.  But  having  to  spend  his  time  as  a 
drawing-master,  he  was  not  free  like  the  old  Dutch 
painters  to  put  out  pictures  when  and  as  often  as  he 
would,  and  his  work  in  oils  is  therefore  comparatively 
scarce.  The  three  examples  at  the  National  Gallery 
are  typical  of  his  varied  powers,  The  Slate  Quarries, 
Mousehold  Heath,  and  Porringland  Oak  are  all  of 
them  masterpieces. 

John  Sell  Cotman,  born  in  1782,  was, after  Crome, 
the  most  considerable  of  the  Norwich  School.  He,  too, 
was  compelled  to  earn  a  livelihood  by  being  a  drawing- 

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Close  ©/"master,  for  there  was  not  as  yet  a  sufficient  market,  nor 
Eighteenth  for  some  time  later,  for  landscape  pictures,  to  support 
Century  existence,  however  humble.  Cotman  devoted  much  of 
his  energies  to  water-colours,  and  he  is  better  known 
in  this  branch  of  the  art  than  in  painting ;  that  is  the 
only  excuse  for  the  National  Gallery  in  having  pur- 
chased as  his  the  very  inferior  picture  called  A  Galliot 
in  a  Gale.  The  other  example,  IVherries  on  the  Yare, 
is  more  worthy  of  him,  though  it  by  no  means  exhibits 
all  his  wonderful  power  and  fascination. 

In  George  Morland  (1763- 1804)  we  have  some- 
thing more  and  something  less  than  a  landscape  painter. 
Landscape  to  him  was  not  what  it  was  to  Wilson,  Gains- 
borough or  Crome, — the  only  end  in  view;  nor  was  it 
merely  a  background  for  his  subjects.  But,  as  it  gener- 
ally happened,  it  was  both.  To  Morland,  the  landscape 
and  the  figures  were  one  and  the  same  thing.  Out  of  the 
fulness  of  his  heart  he  painted  pictures  of  Boys  Robbing 
an  Orchard,  Horses  in  a  Stable,  or  a  Farmer  on  Horse- 
back staying  to  talk  to  a  group  of  gypsies  besideawood, 
and  whether  or  not  the  picture  might  be  classed  as  a 
landscape  depended  entirely  on  the  nature  of  the  scene 
itself.  Whatever  he  saw  or  chose  to  see  he  painted  with 
equal  skill  and  with  equal  charm;  and  as  his  choice  of 
vision  lay  in  the  simple  everyday  life  that  surrounded 
him,  his  variety  is  not  the  least  of  his  attractions. 

The  fact  that  his  mother  was  a  Frenchwoman  (his 
father  was  Henry  Morland,  the  painter  of  the  delightful 
pair  of  half-lengths,  The  Laundry  Maids)  suggests  to 
my  mind  the  wild  surmise  that  she  may  have  been  the 
daughter  of  Chardin.  For  in  the  technique  as  well  as  in 
the  temperament  of  Morland, — making  allowance  for 
difference  of  circumstances, — there  is  something  re- 
markably akin  to  those  of  the  great  Frenchman.  Both 

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eschewed  the  temptation  to  become  fashionable,  both  Close  of 
painted  the  humble  realities  of  middle-class  life  with  a  Eighteenth 
zest  that  could  not  possibly  have  been  affected,  and  both  Century 
painted  them  with  much  the  same  extraordinary  charm. 
At  his  best,  Morland  is  not  much  inferior  to  Chardin, 
and  but  for  his  unfortunate  wildness  and  his  suscepti- 
bility to  the  temptations  of  strong  drink,  he  might  easily 
have  excelled  the  other.  The  feeling  exhibited  in  two 
such  different  subjects  as  Lord  Glenconner's  Boys 
Robbing  an  Orchard,  and  The  Interior  of  a  Stable,  in 
the  National  Gallery,  certainly  equals  that  of  Chardin's 
most  famous  pieces,  I  mean  the  feeling  for  the  particular 
scene  he  is  depicting.  The  nearest,  in  fact  the  only, 
approach  that  Morland  made  to  portrait  painting  was 
in  such  pieces  as  The  Fortune  Teller  in  the  National 
Gallery,  which  brings  to  mind  the  * '  ConversationPieces," 
introduced  by  Hogarth  and  Highmore  into  English 
painting,  but  which  were  never  widely  attempted.  In 
the  Portfolio  monograph  "English  Society  in  the  Eigh- 
teenth Century"  I  tried  to  collect  as  many  examples  as 
I  could  of  this  form  of  art,  but  found  it  difficult  to  fill 
even  a  small  volume,  so  entirely  was  the  single  figure 
portrait  the  vogue.  A  few  notable  instances  are  worth 
mentioning,  if  only  as  exceptions  to  the  general  rule. 
Gainsborough! s Ladies  IValking  in  the  Mall,  belonging 
to  Sir  Audley  Neeld;  Reynolds's  large  group  of  The 
Marlborough  Family  at  Blenheim,  and  a  very  early 
groupof  The  Elliott Family ,  consisting  of  eleven  figures, 
belonging  to  Lord  St  Germans;  John  Singleton  Cop- 
ley's Children  of  Francis  Sitwell,  Esq.,  at  Renishaw; 
and  lastly  Zoffany's  Family  Party,  at  Panshanger. 

For  life-like  representation  of  the  English  people  we 
look  to  Hogarth  and  Morland,  and  yet  nothing  could 
be  more  different  than  the  motives  which  inspired  the 

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Close  of  "two,  and  the  way  they  went  to  work  upon  their  subject. 
Eighteenth  Hogarth  was   above   all   things   theatrical,    Morland 

Century  natural.  Hogarth  first  conceived  his  idea,  then  laid  his 
scene,  and  lastly  peopled  it  with  actual  characters  as 
they  appeared — individually — before  him.  Morland 
simply  looked  about  him  and  painted  what  he  happened 
to  see  at  the  precise  moment  when  what  he  saw  coin- 
cided with  his  natural  inclination,  or  we  may  even  say 
inspiration,  to  paint  it.  It  was  much  the  same  difference 
as  between  the  work  of  Zola  and  that  of  Thomas  Hardy. 
The  one  had  a  moral  to  preach,  the  other  a  story  to  tell. 

When  the  most  we  hear  of  George  Romney  nowa- 
days is  the  price  that  has  been  paid  for  one  of  his 
portraits  at  Christie's,  it  is  refreshing  as  well  as  inform- 
ative to  turn  to  the  criticism  of  one  of  his  greatest 
though  not  in  these  times  so  highly  priced  contempor- 
aries, I  mean  John  Flaxman.  "When  Romney  first 
began  to  paint,"  he  writes,  M  he  had  seen  no  gallery  of 
pictures  nor  the  fine  productions  of  ancient  sculpture  ; 
but  then  women  and  children  were  his  statues,  and  all 
objects  under  the  canopy  of  heaven  formed  his  school  of 
painting.  The  rainbow,  the  purple  distance,  or  the 
silver  lake,  taught  him  colouring ;  the  various  actions 
and  passions  of  the  human  figure,  with  the  forms  of 
clouds,  woods,  and  mountains  or  valleys,  afforded  him 
studies  of  composition.  Indeed,  his  genius  bore  a 
strong  resemblance  to  the  scenes  he  was  born  in  ;  like 
them,  it  partook  of  the  grand  and  beautiful ;  and  like 
them  also,  the  bright  sunshine  and  enchanting  pros- 
pects of  his  fancy  were  occasionally  overspread  with 
mist  and  gloom.  On  his  arrival  in  Italy  he  was  wit- 
ness to  new  scenes  of  art  and  sources  of  study  of  which 
he  could  only  have  supposed  previously  that  something 

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THE  PARSON'S  DAUGHTER 

National  Gallery,  London 


The  English  School 

of  the  kind  might  exist ;  for  he  there  contemplated  the  Close  of 
purity  and  perfection  of  ancient  sculpture,  the  sub- Eighteenth 
limity  of  Michelangelo's  Sistine  Chapel,  and  the  sim-  Century 
plicity  of  Cimabue  and  Giotto's  schools.    He  perceived 
those  qualities  distinctly,  and  judiciously  used  them  in 
viewing  and  imitating  nature  ;  and  thus  his  quick  per- 
ception and  unwearied  application  enabled  him,  by  a 
two  years'  residence  abroad,  to  acquire  as  great  a  pro- 
ficiency in  art  as  is  usually  attained  by  foreign  studies 
of  a  much  longer  duration. 

"After  his  return,  the  novelty  and  sentiment  of  his 
original  subjects  were  universally  admired.  Most  of 
these  were  of  the  delicate  class,  and  each  had  its  pecu- 
liar character.  Titania  with  her  Indian  votaries  was 
arch  and  sprightly;  Milton  dictating  to  his  daughters, 
solemn  and  interesting.  Several  pictures  of  Wood 
Nymphs  and  Bacchantes  charmed  bytheirrural  beauty, 
innocence,  and  simplicity.  The  most  pathetic,  perhaps, 
of  all  his  works  was  never  finished — Ophelia  with  the 
flowers  she  had  gathered  in  her  hand,  sitting  on  the 
branch  of  a  tree,  which  was  breaking  under  her,  whilst 
the  moody  distraction  in  her  lovely  countenance  ac- 
counts for  the  insensibility  to  danger.  Few  painters 
have  left  so  many  examples  in  their  works  of  the  ten- 
der and  delicate  affections  ;  and  several  of  his  pictures 
breathe  a  kindred  spirit  with  the  Sigismonda  of  Cor- 
reggio.  His  cartoons,  some  of  which  have  unfortunately 
perished,  were  examples  of  the  sublime  and  terrible,  at 
that  time  perfectly  new  in  English  art.  As  Romney 
was  gifted  with  peculiar  powers  for  historical  and  ideal 
painting,  so  his  heart  and  soul  were  engaged  in  the 
pursuit  of  it  whenever  he  could  extricate  himself  from 
the  importunate  business  of  portrait  painting.  It  was 
his  delight  by  day  and  study  by  night,  and  for  this  his 

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Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Close  of  'food  and  rest  were  often  neglected.    His  compositions, 
Eighteenth  like  those  of  the  ancient  pictures  and  basso-relievos, 

Century  told  their  story  by  a  single  group  of  figures  in  the  front, 
whilst  the  background  is  made  the  simplest  possible, 
rejecting  all  unnecessary  episode  and  trivial  ornament, 
either  of  secondary  groups  or  architectural  subdivision. 
In  his  compositions  the  beholder  was  forcibly  struck 
by  the  sentiment  at  the  first  glance:  the  gradations  and 
varieties  of  which  he  traced  through  several  characters, 
all  conceived  in  an  elevated  spirit  of  dignity  and  beauty, 
with  a  lively  expression  of  nature  in  all  the  parts.  His 
heads  were  various — the  male  were  decided  and  grand, 
the  female  lovely.  His  figures  resembled  the  antique 
— the  limbs  were  elegant  and  finely  formed.  His 
drapery  was  well  understood,  either  forming  the  figure 
into  a  mass  with  one  or  two  deep  folds  only,  or  by  its 
adhesion  and  transparency  discovering  the  form  of 
the  figure,  the  lines  of  which  were  finely  varied  with 
the  union  or  expansion  of  spiral  or  cascade  folds, 
composing  with  or  contrasting  the  outline  and  chiar- 
oscuro. Few  artists  since  the  fifteenth  century  have 
been  able  to  do  so  much  in  so  many  different  branches; 
for  besides  his  beautiful  compositions  and  pictures, 
which  have  added  to  the  knowledge  and  celebrity  of  the 
English  School,  he  modelled  like  a  sculptor,  carved 
ornaments  in  wood  with  great  delicacy,  and  could  make 
an  architectural  design  in  a  fine  taste,  as  well  as  con- 
struct every  part  of  the  building." 

After  the  death  of  Reynolds  and  the  retirement  of 
Romney,  in  the  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  field  of  portraiture  was  left  vacant — in  London  at 
least — for  John  Hoppner,  whose  name  is  now  gener- 
ally included  with  those  of  Lawrence  and  Raeburn 
among  the  first  six  portrait  painters  of  the  British 

300 


PLATE  XLIII.— GEORGE   ROMNEY 

MRS   ROBINSON— "PERDITA" 

Hertford  House,  London 


ct 


The  English  School 


School.  His  fame  in  recent  years  has  certainly  ex-  Close  of 
ceeded  his  merits,  but  it  is  due  to  him  to  say  that  he  Eighteenth 
was  a  conscientious  artist,  and  a  firm  upholder  of  the  Century 
tradition  of  Reynolds,  so  far  as  in  him  lay.  The  old 
King  had  always  disliked  Reynolds,  and  Hoppner  was 
not  well  enough  advised  to  hold  his  tongue  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  master :  worse  than  this,  he  openly  accepted 
the  patronage  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  by  so  doing 
opened  the  door  for  the  admission  of  Lawrence  as 
royal  painter  much  sooner  than  was  at  all  necessary. 
The  story  of  their  rivalry  is  thus — in  substance — 
sketched  by  Allan  Cunningham,  their  contemporary: — 
The  light  of  the  Prince  of  Wales's  countenance  was  of 
itself  sufficient  to  guide  the  courtly  and  beautiful  to 
Hoppner's  easel.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  before  he  was 
forty  years  of  age  (he  was  born  in  1759),  he  had  been 
enabled  to  exhibit  no  less  than  fifteen  ladies  of  quality 
— for  so  are  they  named  in  the  catalogues — a  score  of 
ladies  of  lower  degree,  and  noblemen  unnumbered. 
But  by  this  time  another  star  had  arisen,  destined  to 
outshine  that  of  Hoppner ;  though  some  at  that  period, 
willing  to  flatter  the  older  practitioner,  called  it  a 
meteor  that  would  but  flash  and  disappear — we  allude 
to  Lawrence.  Urged  upon  the  Academy  by  the  King 
and  Queen,  and  handed  up  to  public  notice  by  royal 
favour,  this  new  aspirant  rose  rapidly  in  the  estimation 
of  the  public  ;  and  by  the  most  delicate  flattery,  both 
with  tongue  and  pencil,  became  a  formidable  rival  to 
the  painter  whom  it  was  the  Prince's  pleasure  to  be- 
friend. The  factions  of  Reynolds  and  Romney  seemed 
revived  in  those  of  Hoppner  and  Lawrence.  If  Hopp- 
ner resided  in  Charles  Street,  at  the  gates  of  Carlton 
House,  and  wrote  himself  "  portrait  painter  to  the 
Prince  of  Wales,"  Lawrence  likewise  had  his  residence 

301 


THE  NINE  TEE  NTH 
CENTURT 

i 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  REVOLT 

In  the  preceding  chapters  we  have  traced  the  develop-  The  Spirit 
ment  of  painting  for  five  centuries — from  the  beginning  of  Revolt 
of  the  fourteenth,  that  is  to  say,  to  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth — in  Italy,  in  the  Netherlands,  in  Germany, 
in  Spain,  and  lastly  in  France  and  England.  In  the 
nineteenth  the  story  is  confined  to  the  last  two  alone,  as 
with  one  or  two  minute  exceptions  the  art  of  painting 
had  by  this  time  entirely  ceased  to  be  worth  considera- 
tion in  any  of  the  others.  Only  in  France  and  England, 
where  it  had  been  most  recently  established,  was  it  to 
continue;  and  besides  continuing,  reach  out  with  the 
most  astonishing  vigour  to  snatch  at  and  grasp  fruits 
that  no  one  before  would  have  dreamt  of  being  within 
its  reach. 

Between  France  and  England — if  by  the  latter  we 
may  be  taken  to  mean  Great  Britain,  and  include  within 
its  artists  those  who  have  acclimatised  themselves 
within  her  shores — the  honours  of  the  achievement  are 
pretty  equally  divided,  though  it  will  have  to  be  left  to 
individual  choice  to  decide  exactly  on  which  side  the 
balance  of  credit  is  due.    A  mere  list  of  the  greatest 

u  305 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

The  Spirit  names  is  not  sufficient  to  apportion  the  praise,  though 
of  Revolt  as  a  preliminary  step  it  may  be  of  value  in  clearing  the 
issue.  Let  us  take  a  dozen  on  either  side,  and  see  how 
they  look. 

England.  France. 

Lawrence.  David. 

Constable.  Gericault. 

Turner.  Ingres. 

De  Wint.  Delacroix. 

Nasrnyth.  Corot. 

Stevens.  Millet. 

Whistler.  Daubigny. 

Cotman.  Courbet. 

Cox.  Daumier. 

Watts.  Decamps. 

Rossetti.  Manet. 

Hunt.  Degas. 

Among  these  Turner  stands  out  conspicuously  from 
the  rest,  and  he  would  be  included  by  anyone  in  a  list 
of  twenty,  or  perhaps  a  dozen,  of  the  greatest  painters  in 
the  world.  But  oddly  enough  his  influence  on  the  art  in 
general  has  been  comparatively  small,  if  we  are  to  judge 
by  its  effects  on  other  painters  up  to  the  present,  while 
that  of  Constable  has  been  considerably  greater.  Manet, 
again,  and  Delacroix,  have  accomplished  far  more  for 
the  history  of  painting  than  any  other  two  in  our  lists 
— and  yet  their  names  are  scarcely  known  outside  the 
circle  of  those  who  know  anything  at  all  about  painting. 

For  the  English  publicat  largean  entirely  different  list 
would  probably  prove  the  superiority  of  their  own  race 
to  their  complete  satisfaction — in  spite  of  Meissonier, 
Dore',  and  Bouguereau  on  the  other  side.  But  that  is 
only  because  the  British  public,  owing  to  the  monopoly 

306 


PLATE  XLIV.— JACQUES  LOUIS  DAVID 

PORTRAIT   OF   MME.   RECAMIER 

Louvre,  Paris 


The  Nineteenth  Century 


enjoyed  by  the  Royal  Academy,  have  never  had  a  chance  7 he  Spirit 
of  judging  for  themselves  what  they  approve  of  and  what  of  Revolt 
they  do  not,  and  their  taste  has  been  vitiated  for  gener- 
ations by  the  exhibition  of  what  this  self-constituted 
authority,  no  doubt  unconsciously,  conceives  to  be  best 
for  them — and  which,  as  might  be  expected,  is  usually 
found  to  coincide  pretty  nearly  with  the  sort  of  thing 
they  are  capable  of  producing  themselves.  Hogarth's 
predictions  at  the  time  the  Academy  was  instituted  have 
in  a  great  measure  come  perfectly  true,  and  the  only 
benefit  that  it  has  been  to  the  English  School  of  painting 
is  that  it  has  kept  it  going.  How  far  this  may  be  called  a 
benefit  is  at  least  arguable,  but  in  the  main  it  is  probable 
that  if  so  many  bad  pictures  had  not  been  painted,  there 
would  not  have  been  so  many  good  ones.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  removal  of  a  man  like  Sir  Lawrence  Alma- 
Tadema  from  his  native  sphere  of  influence  is  quite 
enough  to  account  for  the  unlooked-for  flowering  of 
blossoms  like  the  brothers  Maris,  Bosboom,  Israels, 
and  Mauve  in  the  Dutch  garden,  and  if  that  is  so,  one 
need  not  grudge  him  his  interment  amongst  Nelson, 
Wellington,  and  other  heroes  of  our  own. 

In  a  word,  the  history  of  painting  in  the  nineteenth 
century  is  Revolt.  What  it  is  going  to  be  in  the 
twentieth  I  am  fortunately  not  called  upon  to  say;  but 
if  I  may  throw  out  an  opinion  based  upon  what  is 
already  happening,  I  should  say  that  no  word  has  yet 
been  coined  which  will  adequately  express  it. 

In  the  last  century  the  issues  were  simple,  and  can 
be  easily  expressed.  On  the  one  side  was  the  complacent 
body  of  practitioners  following  to  the  best  of  their 
ability  the  practice  of  painting  as  handed  down  to  them 
in  a  variety  of  different  forms,  just  as  the  Byzantine 
craftsmen  earned  their  living  when  they  were  so  rudely 

307 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Spirit  disturbed  by  Cimabue  and  his  school.  On  the  other 
of  Revolt  was  a  small  but  ever-increasing  number  of  individuals 
who,  like  Cimabue,  began  to  think  things  out  for  them- 
selves, but,  unlike  him,  did  not  succeed  in  effecting  a 
popular  triumph  without — if  at  all — first  raising  both 
the  painters  and  the  public  to  a  pitch  of  fury.  It  is 
indeed  curious  to  read  Vasari  and  modern  historians 
side  by  side,  and  to  wonder  if,  after  all,  Vasari  knew 
or  told  everything,  in  his  desire  to  glorify  the  art,  or 
whether  Giotto  and  other  innovators  were  not  in  fact 
burnt  at  the  stake.  Probably  not.  Gallileo,  as  we  know, 
and  Savonarola  suffered  for  their  crimes.  But  they  were 
working  against  the  Church,  and  the  artists  were  work- 
ing for  it. 

In  the  nineteenth  century,  painting  had  altogether 
broken  away  from  the  Church,  and  so  it  had  to  fight  its 
own  battles  out  in  the  street,  or  in  the  law  courts.  That 
is  what  has  given  it  such  a  swagger  and  strength.  It 
no  longer  looks  to  its  protector,  it  will  hit  you  in  the 
face  before  you  know  where  you  are.  The  feeble  kind, 
only,  looks  to  Academies  for  support,  and  thereby 
becomes  feebler  still. 

In  the  present  chapter,  accordingly,  we  shall  hear  no 
more  of  the  Madonnas,  the  Holy  Families,  and  all  the 
sacred  and  profane  subjects  on  which  the  old  masters 
exercised  their  genius.  Five  centuries  of  painting  had 
established  the  art  in  a  position  of  independence;  and 
in  a  sixth — that  is  to  say,  the  nineteenth — it  began  to 
assert  itself,  and  to  prove  that  its  education  was  not  in 
itself  an  end,  but  only  a  means  to  various  ends.  Instead 
of  following  out  the  fortunes  of  each  painter,  therefore, 
and  attempting  to  set  in  any  sort  of  order  the  reputa- 
tions of  artists  before  sufficient  time  has  elapsed  for 
them  to  cool,  I  propose  to  confine  myself  in  the  remain- 

308 


The  Nineteenth  Century 


ing  pages  to  the  broad  issues  raised  during  this  period  The  Spirit 
between  the  painters,  the  critics,  and  the  public.  of  Revolt 


II 
EUGfeNE  DELACROIX 

The  man  who  began  all  this  street  fighting  was  a 
Frenchman — Eugene  Delacroix.  While  still  a  youth 
he  was  bullied,  and  the  bully  was  such  a  redoubtable 
giant  that  it  took  somebody  with  the  grit  and  genius  of 
Delacroix  to  tackle  him,  but  tackle  him  he  did.  The 
story  of  the  fight,  which  is  a  long  and  glorious  one,  is  so 
admirably  told  in  Madame  Bussy's  life  of  Delacroix, 
that  I  have  obtained  permission  to  give  the  essence  of 
it  in  her  own  words. 

In  the  Salon  of  1822  was  exhibited  Delacroix's  pic- 
ture of  Dante  and  Virgil,  which  is  now  in  the  Louvre, 
and  evoked  the  first  of  those  clamours  of  abuse  which 
were  barely  stilled  before  the  artist's  death.  For  nearly 
thirty  years  all  French  painters,  with  the  exception  of 
Gros  and  Prudhon,  had  shown  themselves  unquestion- 
ing disciples  of  the  school  founded  by  Jacques  Louis 
David,  whose  masterful  character  and  potent  personality 
had  reduced  all  art  to  a  system;  and  Delacroix  himself 
spoke  of  him  with  sympathy  and  admiration.  The  chief 
dogma  of  David's  school  was  that  the  nearest  approach 
to  the  beau  ideal  permitted  to  the  human  race  had  been 
attained  by  the  Greeks,  and  that  all  art  must  conform 
as  closely  as  possible  to  theirs.  Unfortunately,  the  chief 
specimens  of  Greek  art  known  at  that  time  were  those 
belonging  to  a  decadent  period — neither  the  Elgin 
marbles  nor  the  Venus  of  Milo  were  accessible  before 

309 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Eugene  1816 — so  that  the  works  from  which  they  drew  their 
Delacroix  inspiration  were  without  character  in  themselves,  or 
merely  the  feeble  and  attenuated  copies  of  ancient  Rome. 
In  the  pictures  of  this  school,  accordingly,  we  find 
only  the  monotonous  perfection  of  rounded  and  well- 
modelled  limbs,  classical  features  and  straight  noses. 
Colour,  to  the  sincere  Davidian,  was  a  vain  and  frivol- 
ous accessory,  serving  only  to  distract  attention  from 
the  real  purpose  of  the  work,  which  was  to  aim  at  moral 
elevation  as  well  as  at  ideal  beauty.  Everything  in  the 
picture  was  to  be  equally  dwelt  upon;  there  was  no 
sacrifice,  no  mystery.  " These  pictures,"  says  Delacroix, 
"have  no  epidermis  .  .  .  they  lack  the  atmosphere,  the 
lights,  the  reflections  which  blend  into  an  harmonious 
whole,  objects  the  most  dissimilar  in  colour." 

By  the  untimelydeathof  Gericault,  whose  Raft  of  the 
Medusa  had  already  caused  a  flutter  in  1819,  Delacroix 
was  left  at  the  head  of  the  revolt  against  this  pseudo- 
classicism;  and  amid  the  storm  that  greeted  the  Dante 
and  Virgil r  it  is  interesting  to  find  Thiers  writing  of  him 
in  the  following  strain: — "It  seems  to  me  that  no  picture 
[in  the  Salon]  reveals  the  future  of  a  great  painter  better 
than  M.  Delacroix's,  in  which  we  see  an  outbreak  of 
talent,  a  burst  of  rising  superiority  which  revive  the 
hopes  that  had  been  slightly  discouraged  by  the  too 
moderate  merits  of  all  the  rest.  ...  I  think  I  am  not 
mistaken;  M.  Delacroix  has  genius;  let  him  go  on  with 
confidence,  and  devote  himself  to  immense  labour,  the 
indispensable  condition  of  talent."  Dele'cluze,  by  the 
by,  the  critic-in-chief  of  the  Davidian  School,  had 
characterised  the  picture  as  une  veritable  tartouillade. 

In  1824  the  Salon  included  two  pictures  which  may 
be  regarded  as  important  documents  in  the  history  of 
painting.  One  of  these  was  Constable's  Hay  Wain — 

310 


PLATE  XLV.— EUGENE   DELACROIX 
DANTE  AND  VIRGIL 

Louvre,  Paris 


The  Nineteenth  Century 


now  in  our  National  Gallery — which  had  been  pur-  Eugene 
chased  by  a  Frenchman  ;  the  other  was  Delacroix's  Delacroix 
Massacre  o/Scio,  the  first  to  receive  the  enlightenment 
afforded  by  the  Englishman's  methods,  which  spread 
so  widely  over  the  French  School.  It  was  said  that 
Delacroix  entirely  repainted  his  picture  on  seeing  Con- 
stable's ;  but  his  pupil,  Lassalle  Bordes,  is  probably 
nearer  the  truth  in  saying  that  the  master  being  dissatis- 
fied with  its  general  tone,  which  was  too  chalky,  trans- 
formed it  by  means  of  violent  glazings.  The  critics  were 
no  less  noisy  over  this  picture  than  the  last.  "  A  painter 
has  been  revealed  to  us,"  said  one,  "but  he  is  a  man  who 
runs  along  the  housetops."  "Yes,"  answered  Baudelaire, 
"but  for  that  one  must  have  a  sure  foot,  and  an  eye 
guided  by  an  inward  light." 

When  the  Salon  opened  again  in  1827,  after  an  in- 
terval of  three  years,  the  public  were  astonished  to  find 
how  large  a  number  of  painters  had  abandoned  Davidism 
and  openly  joined  the  ranks  of  the  enemy.  Delacroix 
himself  exhibited  the  Marino  Faliero  (now  at  Hertford 
House)  and  eleven  others.  The  gauntlet  was  flung  down, 
and  war  began  in  deadly  earnest  between  the  opposing 
parties.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  terms  Romanticism 
and  Romantic  came  into  common  use.  Delacroix  always 
resented  being  labelled  as  a  Romantic,  and  would  only 
acknowledge  that  the  term  might  be  justly  applied  to 
him  when  used  in  its  widest  signification.  "If  by  my 
Romanticism,"  he  wrote,  "is  meant  the  free  expres- 
sion of  my  personal  impressions,  my  aversion  from  the 
stereotypes  invariably  produced  in  the  schools,  and  my 
repugnance  to  academic  receipts,  then  I  must  admit 
I  am  Romantic." 

Here  we  have  the  plain  truth  about  the  painting  of 
the  nineteenth  century — and  after!   The  critics  were 

311 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Eugene  unanimous  in  their  violent  condemnation  of  Delacroix's 
Delacroix  works  :  "  the  compositions  of  a  sick  man  in  delirium," 
"the  fanaticism  of  ugliness,"  "barbarous  execution," 
11  an  intoxicated  broom  " — such  are  some  of  the  terms  of 
abuse  showered  upon  him.  The  gentlest  among  them 
commiserate  the  talent  which  here  and  there  can  be  seen 
V  struggling  with  the  systematic  bizarrerie  and  the  dis- 
ordered technique  of  the  artist,  just  as  gleams  of  reason 
and  sometimes  flashes  of  genius  may  be  seen  pitiably 
shining  through  the  speech  of  a  madman."  The  final 
touch  to  Delacroix's  disgrace  was  given  by  the  Directeur 
des  Beaux  Arts  sending  for  him  and  recommending  him 
to  study  drawing  from  casts,  warning  him  at  the  same 
time  that  unless  he  could  change  his  style  he  must 
expect  neither  commissions  nor  recognition  from  the 
State ! 

The  year  1830  has  given  its  name  to  that  brilliant 
generation  of  poets,  novelists,  painters  and  philosophers 
which,  as  Theophile  Gautier  says  with  just  pride,  "will 
make  its  mark  on  the  future  and  be  spoken  of  as  one  of 
the  climacteric  epochs  of  the  human  mind."  The  revolu- 
tion of  July  inspired  Delacroix  with  one  of  his  most 
interesting  pictures.  Le  2&Juillet  is  the  only  one  of  his 
works  in  which  he  depicts  modern  life,  and  was  a  strik- 
ing refutation  to  those  who  complained  that  modern 
costume  is  too  ugly  or  prosaic  to  be  treated  in  painting. 
"  Every  old  master,"  Baudelaire  usefully  pointed  out, 
"  has  been  modern  in  his  day.  The  greater  number  of 
fine  portraits  of  former  times  are  dressed  in  the  costume 
of  their  period.  They  are  perfectly  harmonious  because 
the  costumes,  the  hair,  and  even  the  attitude  and  ex- 
pression (each  period  has  its  own),  form  a  whole  of  com- 
plete vitality."  Le  28  Juillet  gives  us  the  very  breath 
and  spirit  of  modern  street  fighting.  Though  the  public 

312 


PLATE  XLVL— JOHN  CONSTABLE 

THE  HAY  WAIN 

National  Gallery,  London 


The  Nineteenth  Century 


remained  hostile  and  the  jury  bestowed  none  of  its  Eugine 
prizes,  as  before,  the  Government  acknowledged  the  Delacroix 
artist's  talent  and  politics  by  making  him  a  Chevalier  of 
the  Legion  of  Honour.  Further,  from  1833  to  1853  he 
was  intermittently  employed  in  decorating  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies,  the  Senate,  and  other  public  buildings.  In 
1855  he  showed  at  the  Great  Exhibition  a  series  of 
thirty-five  of  his  most  important  pictures,  the  effect  of 
which  was  immense.  For  the  first  and  only  time  in  his 
life  he  enjoyed  a  triumph,  none  the  less  great  because 
his  life-long  rival  Ingres  also  took  the  opportunity  of 
exhibiting  a  selection  of  his  works  in  the  same  building. 
But  in  spite  of  this  success,  and  in  spite  of  his  being 
elected  an  Academician  in  1857,  tne  critics  remained 
incorrigible.  His  pictures  in  the  Salon  of  1859  once 
more  called  forth  one  of  those  storms  of  abuse  that 
Delacroix  had  the  gift  of  arousing.  Weary  and  dis- 
heartened— "All  my  life  long  I  have  been  livrd  aux 
betes,"  was  his  bitter  exclamation — he  vowed  to  exhibit 
no  more,  and  kept  his  word. 


Ill 

RUSKIN  AGAINST  THE  PHILISTINES 

In  England,  meantime,  great  things  were  being  ac- 
complished amid  peaceful  surroundings.  In  portrait- 
ure Lawrence  soon  became  supreme,  and  what  excel- 
lence he  possessed  was  accentuated  on  his  death  in  1830 
by  the  appointment  of  Sir  Martin  Archer  Shee  as  his 
successor  in  the  Presidency  of  the  Royal  Academy.  That 
was  the  end  of  portraiture  in  England  until  a  new  school 
arose.  But  it  was  in  landscape  that  our  country  occupied 

3i3 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Ruskln  the  field  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
against  the  tilled  it  with  the  astonishing  results  that  are  usually  the 
Philistines  effect  of  doing  much  and  saying  little.  The  work  accom- 
plished by  Turner,  Constable,  and  Cotman,  in  the  first 
half  of  the  century,  to  say  nothing  of  Crome  and  one  or 
two  of  the  older  men  who  were  still  alive,  has  never  been 
equalled  in  any  country,  and  yet  less  was  heard  about 
the  execution  of  it  than  would  keep  a  modern  journalist 
in  bread  and  cheese  for  a  week.  Turner,  who  wouldn't 
sell  his  pictures,  and  Constable,  who  couldn't,  between 
them  filled  up  the  measure  of  English  art  without  any 
other  aid  than  that  of  the  materials  with  which  they  re- 
corded their  gorgeous  communion  with  nature.  When 
Ruskinsteppedinwiththe"  Modern  Painters, "originally 
designed  as  a  vindication  of  Turner  against  certain  later- 
day  critics,  Turner's  comment  was,  "  He  knows  a  great 
deal  more  about  my  pictures  than  I  do.  He  puts  things 
into  my  head  and  points  out  meanings  in  them  that  I 
never  intended."  That  was  in  1843,  when  Turner  was 
well  on  in  his  third  manner — within  eight  years  of  his 
death.  But  let  us  go  back  to  the  beginning. 

Until  he  developed  his  latest  manner,  Turner  was 
about  the  most  popular  artist  that  ever  lived.  His 
pictures  were  not  above  the  comprehension  of  the  public, 
educated  or  otherwise,  and  no  effort  was  either  needed 
or  demanded  to  understand  them.  In  the  diary  of  a 
provincial  amateur,  Thomas  Greene,  are  recorded  an  im- 
pression of  Turner's  work  as  early  as  1797: — "Visited 
the  Royal  Exhibition.  Particularly  struck  with  a  sea- 
view  by  Turner . . .  the  whole  composition  bold  in  design 
and  masterly  in  execution.  I  am  entirely  unacquainted 
with  the  artist,  but  if  he  proceeds  as  he  has  begun,  he, 
cannot  fail  to  become  the  first  in  his  department." 
And  again  in  1799: — "Was  again  struck  and  delighted 

3i4 


The  Nineteenth  Century 

with  Turner's  landscapes.  .  .  .  Turner's  views  are  not  Ruskin 
mere  ordinary  transcripts  of  nature, — he  always  throws  against  the 
some  peculiar  and  striking  character  into  the  scene  he  Philistines 
represents." 

Brought  up  as  a  topographical  draughtsman,  he 
made  no  departure  till  quite  late  in  life  from  the  con- 
ventional method  of  depicting  scenery;  but  being  a 
supremely  gifted  artist,  he  was  capable  of  utilising  this 
method  as  no  other  before  or  since  has  ever  succeeded  in 
doing.  The  accepted  method  was  good  enough  for  him, 
and  he  laid  his  paint  upon  the  canvas  as  anybody  else 
had  done  before  him,  and  as  many  of  our  present-day 
painters  would  do  well  to  do  after  him — if  only  they  had 
the  genius  in  them  to  "make  the  instrument  speak." 
The  impressions  created  on  our  mind  by  Turner's  earlier 
pictures  are  not  conveyed  by  dots,  cubes,  streaks,  or  any 
device  save  that  of  pigment  laid  upon  the  canvas  in  such 
a  manner  as  seemed  to  the  artist  to  reproduce  what  he 
saw  in  nature.  That  he  did  this  with  surprising  and 
altogether  exceptional  skill  is  the  proof  of  his  genius. 
Unflagging  energy  and  devotion  to  his  art  enabled  him 
to  realise,  not  all,  but  a  wonderful  number  of  the  beauties 
he  saw  in  the  world,  with  an  experience  that  few  beside 
him  have  ever  taken  the  trouble  to  acquire.  When  barely 
thirty  years  old — in  1805 — he  was  already  considered 
as  the  first  of  living  landscape  painters,  and  was  thus 
noticed  by  Edward  Dayes  (the  teacher  of  Girtin): — 
"Turner  may  be  considered  as  a  strikinginstance  of  how 
much  may  be  gained  by  industry,  if  accompanied  with 
perseverance,  even  without  the  assistance  of  a  master. 
The  way  he  acquired  his  professional  powers  was  by 
borrowing  when  he  could  a  drawing  or  picture  to  copy; 
or  by  making  a  sketch  of  any  one  in  the  exhibition  early 
in  the  morning  and  finishing  it  up  at  home.  By  such 

3i5 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Ruskin  practice,  and  a  patient  perseverance,  he  has  overcome  all 
against  the  the  difficulties  of  the  art."  Turner  himself  used  to  say 
Philistines  fart  his  best  academy  was  "the  fields  and  Dr  Monro's 
parlour" — where  Girtin  and  other  young  artists  met  and 
sketched  and  copied  the  drawings  in  the  doctor's  collec- 
tion. Burnet,  in  his  notice  of  "Turner  and  his  Works," 
suggests  that  John  Robert  Cozens  had  paved  the  way 
for  both  Girtin  and  Turner  in  striking  out  a  broad  effect 
of  light  and  shade.  "The  early  pictures  of  Turner,"  he 
observes,  "possess  the  breadth,  but  are  destitute  of  the 
brilliant  power  of  light  and  colour  afterwards  pervading 
his  works,  and  ultimately  carried  to  the  greatest  extreme 
in  his  last  pictures.  Breadth  of  light  seems  to  have  been 
latterly  his  chief  aim,  supported  by  the  contrast  of  hot 
and  cold  colour;  two  of  his  unfinished  pictures  ex- 
emplified the  principle;  they  were  divided  into  large 
masses  of  blue  where  the  water  or  sky  was  to  come  and 
the  other  portions  laid  out  in  broad  orange  yellow,  fall- 
ing into  delicate  brown  where  the  trees  and  landscapes 
were  to  be  placed.  This  preparation,  while  it  secured  the 
greatest  breadth,  would  have  shone  through  the  other 
colours  when  finished,  giving  the  luminous  quality 
observable  in  his  pictures.  In  many  instances  his  works 
sent  for  exhibition  to  the  British  Institution  had  little 
more  than  this  brilliant  foundation,  which  was  worked 
into  detail  and  completed  in  the  varnishing  days,  Turner 
being  the  first  in  the  morning  and  the  last  to  leave;  his 
certainty  in  the  command  over  his  colour,  and  the 
dexterity  in  his  handling,  seemed  to  convert  in  a  few 
hours  'an  unsubstantial  pageant'  into  a  finished  land- 
scape. These  ad  captandum  effects,  however,  are  not 
what  his  fame  will  depend  on  for  perpetuity;  his  finest 
pictures  are  the  production  of  great  study  in  their  com- 
position, careful  and  repeated  painting  in  the  detail,  and 

316 


PLATE   XLVIL— J.  M.  W.  TURNER 
CROSSING  THE  BROOK 

National  Gallery  of  British  Art,  Londo?i 


The  Nineteenth  Century 


a  natural  arrangement  of  the  colour  and  breadth  of  the  Ruskin 
chiaroscuro."  against  the 

Whether  or  not  we  agree  with  all  of  Burnet's  Philistines 
opinions,  we  shall  be  more  likely  to  learn  the  truth 
about  Turner  from  prosaic  contemporaries  of  his  earlier 
years  than  from  all  the  rhapsodies  of  later  days.  How 
significant,  when  stripped  of  its  amusing  circum- 
stances, is  the  simple  fact  related  thus  by  Leslie: — 
"In  1839,  when  Constable  exhibited  his  Opening  of 
Waterloo  Bridge,  it  was  placed  in  one  of  the  small 
rooms  next  to  a  sea-piece  by  Turner — a  grey  picture, 
beautiful  and  true,  but  with  no  positive  colour  in  any 
part  of  it.  Constable's  picture  seemed  as  if  painted  with 
liquid  gold  and  silver,  and  Turner  came  several  times 
while  he  was  heightening  with  vermilion  and  lake  the 
decorations  and  flags  of  the  city  barges.  Turner  stood 
behind  him  looking  from  the  Waterloo  Bridge  to  his 
own  picture,  and  at  last  brought  his  palette  from  the 
great  room  where  he  was  touching  another  picture,  and 
putting  a  round  daub  of  red  lead,  somewhat  bigger 
than  a  shilling,  on  his  grey  sea,  went  away  without  say- 
ing a  word.  The  intensity  of  this  red  lead,  made  more 
vivid  by  the  coolness  of  his  picture,  caused  even  the 
vermilion  and  lake  of  Constable  to  look  weak.  I  came 
into  the  room  just  after  Turner  had  left  it.  "He  has 
been  here,"  said  Constable,  "and  fired  a  gun."  On  the 
opposite  wall  was  a  picture  by  Jones  of  Shadrach  Mes- 
hach  and  Abednego  in  the  Furnace.  "A  coal,"  said 
Cooper,  "has  bounced  across  the  room  from  Jones's 
picture  and  set  fire  to  Turner's  sea."  Turner  did  not 
come  in  again  for  a  day  and  a  half,  and  then  in  the 
last  moment  allowed  for  painting,  he  glazed  the  scar- 
let seal  he  had  put  on  his  picture,  and  shaped  it  into  a 
buoy." 

3i7 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Ruskin  It  was  in  1835,  a^er  an  unbroken  popular  triumph 
against  the  lasting  over  thirty  years,  that  the  critics  openly  rounded 
Philistines  on  him#  The  occasion  seized  by  Blackwood s  Magazine 
was  the  exhibition  of  his  first  Venetian  picture  exhibited 
in  that  year — it  is  now  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  in 
New  York.  "What  is  Venice  in  this  picture?"  wrote 
Blackwood's  critic.  "A  flimsy,  whitewashed,  meagre 
assemblage  of  architecture,  starting  off  ghost-like  into 
unnatural  perspective,  as  if  frightened  at  the  affected 
blaze  of  some  dogger  vessels  (the  only  attempt  at  rich- 
ness in  the  picture).  The  greater  part  of  the  picture  is 
white,  disagreeable  white,  without  light  or  transpar- 
ency, and  the  boats  with  their  red  worsted  masts  are  as 
gewgaw  as  a  child's  toy  which  he  may  have  cracked 
to  see  what  it  is  made  of.  As  to  Venice,  nothing  can  be 
more  unlike  its  character." 

Ruskin  was  then  only  sixteen  years  old,  but  eight 
years  later  appeared  in  print  the  first  volume  of  "Modern 
Painters,"  "by  an  undergraduate  of  Oxford,"  as  the  result 
of  his  growing  indignation  at  this  and  subsequent 
attacks  on  Turner.  Without  following  Ruskin  into  the 
dubious  regions  whither  the  pursuit  of  his  romantic 
fancies  ultimately  led  him,  we  may  in  fairness  quote  the 
opening  sentence  of  his  second  chapter,  "Of  Truth  of 
Colour,"  which  will  help  us,  moreover,  in  understanding 
the  conditions  under  which  painting  was  being  con- 
ducted at  this  period.  "There  is  nothing  so  high  in  art," 
he  says,  "but  that  a  scurrile  jest  can  reach  at,  and  often 
the  greater  the  work  the  easier  it  is  to  turn  it  into 
ridicule.  To  appreciate  the  science  of  Turner's  colour 
would  require  the  study  of  a  life;  but  to  laugh  at  it 
requires  little  more  than  the  knowledge  that  the  yolk  of 
egg  is  yellow  and  spinage  green;  a  fund  of  critical  in- 
formation on  which  the  remarks  of  most  of  our  leading 

318 


The  Nineteenth  Century 

periodicals  have  been  of  late  years  exclusively  based.  Ruskin 
We  shall,  however,  in  spite  of  the  sulphur  and  treacle  against  the 
criticisms  of  our  Scotch  connoisseurs,  and  the  eggs  and  Philistines 
spinage  of  our  English  ones,  endeavour  to  test  the 
works  of  this  great  colourist  by  a  knowledge  of  nature 
somewhat  more  extensive  than  is  to  be  gained  by  an 
acquaintance,  however  formed,  with  the  apothecary's 
shop  or  the  dinner  table." 

So  much  for  the  critics.  For  the  artist,  if  Ruskin 
said  more  than  Turner  himself  could  understand,  he  has 
summed  up  his  achievement  in  a  few  passages  which 
may  possibly  outlast  the  works  themselves.  ■ '  There  has 
been  marked  and  constant  progress  in  his  mind;  he  has 
not,  like  some  few  artists,  been  without  childhood;  his 
course  of  study  has  been  as  evidently  as  it  has  been 
swiftly  progressive ;  and  in  different  stages  of  the 
struggle,  sometimes  one  order  of  truth,  sometimes  an- 
other, has  been  aimed  at  or  omitted.  But  from  the 
beginningto  the  present  height  of  his  career  he  has  never 
sacrificed  a  greater  truth  to  a  less.  As  he  advanced,  the 
previous  knowledge  or  attainment  was  absorbed  in  what 
succeeded,  or  abandoned  only  if  incompatible,  and  never 
abandoned  without  a  gain :  and  his  present  works  pre- 
sent the  sum  and  perfection  of  his  accumulated  know- 
ledge, delivered  with  the  impatience  and  passion  of  one 
who  feels  too  much,  and  has  too  little  time  to  say  it  in, 
to  pause  for  expression  or  ponder  over  his  syllables." 
And  again  of  his  latest  works — "There  is  in  them  the 
obscurity,  but  the  truth,  of  prophecy ;  the  instinctive  and 
burning  language,  which  would  express  less  if  it  uttered 
more;  which  is  indistinct  only  by  its  fulness,  and  dark 
with  its  abundant  meaning.  He  feels  now,  with  long- 
trained  vividness  and  keenness  of  sense,  too  bitterly,  the 
impotence  of  the  hand  and  the  vainness  of  the  colour  to 

3i9 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Ruskin  catch  one  shadow  or  one  image  of  the  glory  which  God 
against  the  has  revealed  to  him.  He  has  dwelt  and  communed  with 
Philistines  Nature  all  the  days  of  his  life:  he  knows  her  now  too 
well,  he  cannot  falter  over  the  material  littlenesses  of  her 
outward  form :  he  must  give  her  soul,  or  he  has  done 
nothing,  and  he  cannot  do  this  with  the  flax,  the  earth, 
and  the  oil.  'I  cannot  gather  the  beams  out  of  the  east, 
or  I  would  make  them  tell  you  what  I  have  seen ;  but  read 
this,  and  interpret  this,  and  let  us  remember  together. 
I  cannot  gather  the  gloom  out  of  the  night  sky,  or  I 
would  make  that  teach  you  what  I  have  seen ;  but  read 
this,  interpret  this,  and  let  us  feel  together.  And  if  you 
have  not  that  within  you  which  I  can  summon  to  my 
aid,  if  you  have  not  the  sun  in  your  spirit,  andthe  passion 
in  your  heart,  which  my  words  may  awaken,  though 
they  be  indistinct  and  swift,  leave  me;  for  I  will  give  you 
no  patient  mockery,  no  laborious  insult  of  that  glorious 
Nature,  whose  I  am  and  whom  I  serve.  Let  other  ser- 
vants imitate  the  voice  and  the  gesture  of  their  master, 
while  they  forget  his  message.  Hear  that  message  from 
me;  but  remember  that  the  teaching  of  Divine  truth 
must  still  be  a  mystery.'" 

Within  a  very  few  years  Ruskin  was  performing  a 
more  useful  service  for  the  English  School  of  painting 
than  that  of  gilding  the  fine  gold  of  its  greatest  genius. 
Whether  or  not  he  was  aware  of  the  fact,  young  Holman 
Hunt  had  borrowed  a  copy  of  "  Modern  Painters,"  which, 
he  says,  entirely  changed  his  opinions  as  to  the  views 
held  by  society  at  large  concerning  art,  and  in  1849  there 
were  exhibited  Hunt's  Rienzi,  Rossetti's  Girlhood  of 
Mary  Virgin,  and  Millais'  Lorenzo  and  Isabella,  each 
inscribed  with  the  mystic  letters  "P.R.B.,"  meaning 
''Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood."  It  is  interesting  to  note 
that  this  alliance  was  formed  when  the  three  young 

320 


The  Nineteenth  Century 


artists  were  looking  over  a  book  of  engravings  of  the  Ruskin 
frescoes  in  the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa.  against  the 

In  the  following  year  Hunt  exhibited  the  British  Philistines 
Family,  Millais,  The  Carpenter  s  Shop,  and  Rossetti 
thcEcceAncilla  Domini,  and  in  1851  were  Hunt's  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona  and  three  by  Millais.  The  fury  of 
the  critics  had  now  reached  a  point  at  which  some  notice 
had  to  be  taken  of  it — as  of  a  man  in  an  apopleptic  fit. 
That  of  the  Times  in  particular: — "These  young  artists 
have  unfortunately  become  notorious  by  addicting  them- 
selves to  an  antiquated  style,  false  perspective,  and  crude 
colour  of  remote  antiquity.  We  want  not  to  see  what 
Fuseli  termed  drapery  " snapped  instead  of  folded," 
faces  bloated  into  apoplexy,  or  extenuated  into  skeletons; 
colour  borrowed  from  the  jars  in  a  druggist's  shop,  and 
expression  forced  into  caricature.  That  morbid  infatua- 
tion which  sacrifices  truth,  beauty,  and  genuine  feeling 
to  mere  eccentricity  deserves  no  quarter  at  the  hands  of 
the  public."  It  was  in  disapproval  of  the  tone  of  this 
outburst  that  the  author  of  "Modern  Painters"  ad- 
dressed his  famous  and  useful  letter  to  the  Times,  vindi- 
cating the  artists,  and  following  it  up  with  another  in 
which  he  wishes  them  all  "heartily  good  speed,  believing 
in  sincerity  that  if  they  temper  the  courage  and  energy 
which  they  have  shown  in  the  adoption  of  their  systems 
with  patience  and  discretion  in  framing  it,  and  if  they 
do  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  driven  by  harsh  and  care- 
less criticism  into  rejection  of  the  ordinary  means  of 
obtaining  influence  over  the  minds  of  others,  they  may, 
as  they  gain  experience,  lay  in  our  England  the  founda- 
tion of  a  school  of  art  nobler  than  the  world  has  seen  for 
three  hundred  years." 

If  any  one  of  this  strenuous  young  band  had  been  a 
painter  of  the  first  rank,  this  prediction  might  have  been 

x  321 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Ruskin  abundantly  verified.  But  it  must  be  owned  that  none  of 
against  the  them  was.  Holman  Hunt  came  nearest  to  being,  and 
Philistines  Millais  probably  thought  he  was,  when  he  had  aban- 
doned his  early  principles  and  shaped  for  the  Presidency 
of  the  Academy.  Rossetti  had  more  genius  in  him  than 
the  others,  but  it  came  out  in  poetry  as  well  as  in  paint- 
ing, and  perhaps  in  more  lasting  form.  As  it  was,  the 
effects  of  the  revolution  were  widespread  and  entirely 
beneficial;  but  those  effects  must  not  be  looked  for  in 
the  works  of  any  one  particular  artist,  but  rather  in  the 
general  aspect  of  English  art  in  the  succeeding  half 
century,  and  perhaps  to-day.  It  broke  up  the  soil.  The 
flowers  that  came  up  were  neither  rare  nor  great,  but 
they  were  many,  varied,  and  pleasing,  and  in  every 
respect  an  improvement  on  the  evergreens  and  hardy 
annuals  with  which  the  English  garden  had  become 
more  and  more  encumbered  from  want  of  intelligent 
cultivation.  More  than  this,  the  freedom  engendered  of 
revolt  had  now  encouraged  the  young  artist  to  feel  that 
he  was  no  longer  bound  to  paint  in  any  particular 
fashion.  People's  eyes  were  opened  to  possibilities  as 
well  as  to  actualities ;  and  though  they  were  prone  to 
close  again  under  the  soporific  influence  of  what  was 
regular  and  conventional,  they  were  capable  of  opening 
again,  perhaps  with  a  start,  but  without  the  necessity  for 
a  surgical  operation.  In  1847,  for  example,  George 
Frederick  Watts  had  offered  to  adorn,  free  of  charge,  the 
booking-hall  of  Euston  Station,  and  had  been  refused — 
Watts,  by  the  by,  was  quite  independent  of  the  Pre- 
Raphaelites — whereas  in  i860  the  Benchers  of  Lincoln's 
Inn  accepted  his  School  of  Legislature,  and  in  1867  he 
was  elected  an  academician. 

Two  somewhat  remarkable  effects  of  the  movement 
are  attributed  to  it  by  Mr  Edmund  Gosse  (in  a  note  on 

322 


The  Nineteenth  Century 


the  work  of  Alfred  Hunt,  written  in  1884),  which  arzRuskin 
probably  typical  of  many  more.  The  Liverpool  Academy,  against  the 
founded  in  18 10,  had  an  annual  grant  of  ^200  from  the  Philistines 
Corporation.  In  1857  it  gave  a  prize  to  Millais'  Blind 
Girl  in  preference  to  the  most  popular  picture  of  the 
year  (Abraham  Solomon's  Waiting  for  the  Verdict), 
and  so  great  was  the  public  indignation  that  pressure 
was  brought  to  bear  on  the  Corporation,  the  grant  was 
withdrawn,  and  the  Academy  ruined. 

In  the  other  instance  we  may  not  go  the  whole  way 
with  Mr  Gosse,  when  in  speaking  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
principle  he  says  that  "the  school  of  Turnerian  land- 
scape was  fatally  affected  by  them,"  or  that  all  the  land- 
scape painters,  except  Alfred  Hunt,  "accepted  the  veto 
which  the  Pre-Raphaelites  had  tacitly  laid  upon  com- 
position or  a  striving  after  an  artificial  harmony  of  forms 
in  landscape."  But  to  a  certain  extent  their  influence 
undoubtedly  was  prejudicial  in  that  respect.  In  suggest- 
ing another  reason  for  the  cessation  of  Turner's  influence 
he  is  quite  as  near  the  mark,  namely,  the  action  of  the 
Royal  Academy  in  admitting  no  landscape  painters  to 
membership.  At  Turner's  death  in  1851  there  were  only 
three,  among  whom  was  Creswick.  "This  popular  artist," 
says  Mr  Gosse,  "was  the  Upas  tree  under  whose  shadow 
the  Academical  patronage  of  landscape  died  in  England. 
From  his  election  as  an  associate  in  1842  to  that  of  Vicat 
Cole  in  1869,  no  landscape  painter  entered  the  doors  of 
the  Royal  Academy."  Of  this  august  body  we  shall  have 
something  to  say  later  on. 


323 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

IV 

MANET  AND  WHISTLER  AGAINST  THE  WORLD 

Manet  an //Let  us  now  cross  the  channel  again,  and  see  what  is 
Whistler  going  on  there,  in  1863.  Evidently  there  is  something 
on,  or  there  would  not  be  so  much  excitement.  As  we 
approach  the  Capital  we  are  aware  of  one  name  being 
prominent  in  the  general  uproar — that  of  Edouard 
Manet. 

Manet's  revolt  against  tradition  began  before  he 
became  an  artist,  as  was  in  fact  necessary,  or  he  would 
never  have  been  allowed  to  become  one.  The  traditions 
of  the  Bourgoisie  were  sacred,  and  their  power  and  im- 
portance since  the  revolution  of  1848  not  to  be  lightly 
set  aside.  But  young  Manet  was  so  determined  that  he 
was  at  last  allowed  by  his  bourgeois  parents  to  have 
his  way,  and  was  sent  to  study  under  that  very  rough 
diamond  Couture.  Now  again  his  "revolting"  qualities 
showed  themselves,  this  time  in  the  life  class.  Theodore 
Duret,  his  friend  and  biographer,  puts  it  so  amusingly 
that  a  quotation,  untranslated,  is  imperative: — "Cette 
repulsion  qui  se  deVeloppe  chez  Manet  pour  Tart  de  la 
tradition,"  he  says,  "se  manifeste  surtout  par  le  mdpris 
qu'il  tdmoigne  aux  modeles  posant  dans  l'atelier  et  a 
l'dtude  du  nu  telle  qu'elle  dtait  alors  conduite.  Le  culte 
de  l'antique  comme  on  le  comprenait  dans  la  premiere 
moitie'  du  xixe  siecle  parmi  les  peintres  avait  amend  la 
recherche  de  modeles  speciaux.  On  leur  demandait  des 
formes  pleines.  Les  hommes  en  particulier  devaient 
avoir  une  poitrine  large  et  bombde,  un  torse  puissant, 
des  membres  muscle's.  Les  individus  douds  des  qualitds 
requises  qui  posaient  alors  dans  les  ateliers,  s'etaient 
habituds  a  prendre  des  attitudes  prdtendues  expressive 

324 


The  Nineteenth  Century 


et  heroiques,  mais  toujours  tendues  et  conventionelles,  Manet  and 

d'ou  l'impreVu  dtait  banni.   Manet,  porte'  vers  le  naturel  Whistler 

et  dpris  de  recherches,  s'irritait  de  ces  poses  d'un  type 

fixe  et  toujours  les  me'mes.  Aussi  faisait-il  tres  mauvais 

manage  avec  les  modeles.  II  cherchait  a  en  obtenir  des 

poses  contraires  a  leurs  habitudes,  auxquelles   ils  se 

refusaient.   Les  modeles  connus  qui  avaient  vu  les  mor- 

ceaux  faits  d'apres  leurs  torses  conduire  certains  Aleves 

a  l'dcole  de  Rome,  alors  la  supreme  recompense,  et  qui 

dans   leur   orgueil    s'attribuaient   presqu'une  part  du 

succes,  se  revoltaient  de  voir  un  tout  jeune  homme  ne 

leur  tdmoigner  aucun  respect.    II  parait  que  fatigue*  de 

l'eternelle  dtude  du  nu,  Manet  aurait  essaye*  de  draper  et 

m6me  d'habiller  les  modeles,  ce  qui  aurait  cause*  parmi 

eux  une  veritable  indignation." 

It  was  in  1863  that  the  storm  of  popular  fury  burst 
over  Manet's  head,  on  the  exhibition  of  his  first  import- 
ant picture,  painted  three  years  before,  generally  known 
as  Le  Ddjeuner  sur  rherbe.  This  wonderful  canvas 
was  something  so  new  and  so  surprising  that  it  was 
rejected  by  the  jury  of  the  Salon.  But  in  company 
with  less  conspicuous  though  equally  unacceptable 
pieces  by  such  men  as  Bracquemond,  Cazin,  Fantin- 
Latour,  Harpignies,  Jongkind,  J.  P.  Laurens,  Le  Gros, 
Pissarro,  Vollon,  and  Whistler,  it  was  accorded  an  ex- 
hibition, alongside  the  official  Salon,  which  was  called 
le  Salon  des  refuse's.  Being  the  largest  and  most  con- 
spicuous work  shown,  it  attracted  no  less  attention  than 
if  it  had  been  officially  hung,  and  probably  much  more. 
"  Ainsi  ce  Dejeuner  sur  l'herbe,"  says  M.  Duret,  "venait- 
il  faire  comme  une  dnorme  tache.  II  donnait  la  sensation 
de  quelquechose  outre\  II  heurtait  la  vision.  II  pro- 
duisait,  sur  les  yeux  du  public  de  ce  temps,  1'effet  de  la 
pleine  lumiere  sur  les  yeux  du  hibou." 

325 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 

Manet  and  There  was  more  than  one  reason  for  this  remarkable 
Whistler  picture  surprising  and  shocking  the  sensibilities  of  the 
public.  It  represents  a  couple  of  men  in  everyday 
bourgeois  costume,  one  sitting  and  the  other  reclining 
on  the  grass  under  trees,  while  next  to  one  of  them  is 
seated  a  young  woman,  her  head  turned  to  the  spectator, 
in  no  costume  at  all.  A  profusion  of  articles  de  ddjenner 
is  beside  her,  and  it  is  evident  that  they  are  only  waiting 
to  arrange  the  meal  till  a  second  young  woman,  who  is 
seen  bathing  in  the  near  background,  is  ready  to  join 
them.  The  subject  and  composition  are  reminiscent  of 
Giorgione's  beautiful  and  famous  Fe*te  ChamftStre,  in 
the  Louvre,  and  Manet  quite  frankly  and  in  quite  good 
faith  pleaded  Giorgione  as  his  precedent  when  assailed 
on  grounds  of  good  taste.  But  unfortunately  he  had  not 
put  his  male  figures  in  "  fancy  dress,"  and  the  public 
could  hardly  be  expected  to  realise  that  Giorgione  had 
not,  either.  As  for  the  painting,  it  was  a  revelation. 
He  had  broken  every  canon  of  tradition — and  yet  it  was 
a  marvellous  success ! 

Another  outburst  greeted  the  appearance  of  the 
wonderful  Olympia  in  1865,  this  time  in  the  official 
catalogue.  This  is  now  enshrined  in  the  Louvre.  It  was 
painted  in  1863,  but  fortunately,  perhaps,  Manet  had 
not  the  courage  to  exhibit  it  then — for  who  can  tell  to 
what  length  the  fury  of  the  Philistines  might  not  have 
been  goaded  by  two  such  shocks  ?  As  it  was,  this  second 
violation  of  the  sacred  traditions  of  the  nude,  which  had 
been  exclusively  reserved  for  allegorical  subjects,  was 
considered  an  outrage;  and  the  innocent,  natural  model, 
of  by  no  means  voluptuous  appearance,  was  regarded 
as  a  disgraceful  intrusion  into  the  chaste  category  of 
nymphs  and  goddesses.  As  a  painter,  however,  Manet 
had  shown  himself  unmistakably  as  the  great  figure  of 

326 


PLATE  XLVIIL— EDOUARD  MANET 
OLYMPIA 

Louvre,  Paris 


The  Nineteenth  Century 

the  age,  and  if  we  have  to  go  to  Paris  or  to  New  York  Manet  and 
to  catch  a  glimpse  of  any  of  his  work,  it  is  partly  because  Whistler 
we  are  too  backward  in  seizing  opportunities  so  eagerly 
snapped  up  by  others. 

The  next  great  storm  in  the  artistic  world  followed 
in  the  wake  of  one  of  Manet's  companions  in  adversity 
at  the  Salon  des  Refusds — James  M'Neill  Whistler, 
who  left  Paris  and  settled  with  his  mother  in  Chelsea  in 
the  late  'sixties.  That  he  should  have  existed  for  fifteen 
whole  yearswithout  breakingforth  into  strife  is  so  extra- 
ordinary that  we  are  almost  tempted  to  attribute  it  to 
the  influence  of  his  mother,  who  used  to  bring  him  to 
the  old  church  on  Sundays,  as  the  present  writer  dimly 
remembers.  In  this  case  it  was  not  the  public,  but  the 
critic,  John  Ruskin,  who  so  deftly  dropped  the  fat 
into  the  fire.  Having,  as  we  saw,  taken  up  the  cudgels 
for  poor  Turner  against  the  public  in  1843,  and  for  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood  in  1850,  he  now,  in  1877, 
ranged  himself  on  the  other  side,  and  accused  Whistler 
of  impertinence  in  "  flinging  a  pot  of  paint  in  the  face  of 
the  public."  The  action  for  libel  which  Whistler  com- 
menced in  the  following  year  resulted  in  strict  fact  in  a 
verdict  of  one  farthing  damages  for  the  libelled  one;  but 
in  reality  the  results  were  much  farther  reaching.  The 
artist  had  vindicated  not  only  himself,  but  his  art,  from 
the  attacks  of  the  ignorant  and  bumptious.  "Poor  art!" 
Whistler  wrote,  "What  a  sad  state  the  slut  is  in,  an 
these  gentlemen  shall  help  her.  The  artist  alone,  by 
the  way,  is  to  no  purpose  and  remains  unconsulted;  his 
work  is  explained  and  rectified  without  him,  by  the  one 
who  was  never  in  it — but  upon  whom  God,  always  good 
though  sometimes  careless,  has  thrown  away  the  know- 
ledge refused  to  the  author,  poor  devil ! "  This  re- 
calls Turner's  comment  on  Ruskin's  eulogies — which 

327 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Manet  and  Whistler  had  probably  never  heard  of — and  making 
Whistler  every  allowance  for  Whistlers  fiery,  combative  nature, 
and  sharp  pen,  there  is  much  truth,  and  truth  that 
needed  telling,  in  his  contention.  "Art,"  he  continues, 
11  that  for  ages  has  hewn  its  own  history  in  marble,  and 
written  its  own  comments  on  canvas,  shall  it  suddenly 
stand  still,  and  stammer,  and  wait  for  wisdom  from 
the  passer-by?  For  guidance  from  the  hand  that 
holds  neither  brush  nor  chisel  ?  Out  upon  the  shallow 
conceit ! " 

Of  the  hopeless  banality  of  the  critics  during  this 
period  there  are  plenty  of  examples  to  be  found  without 
looking  very  far.  Several  of  the  most  amusing  have 
been  embodied  in  a  little  volume  of  "Whistler  Stories," 
lately  compiled  by  Mr  Don  C.  Seitz  of  New  York. 
Here  we  find  The  Standard 's  little  joke  about  Whistler 
paying  his  costs  in  the  action — apart  from  those  allowed 
on  taxation,  that  is  to  say — "But  he  has  only  to  paint, 
or,  as  we  believe  he  expresses  it  'knock  off'  three  or  four 
'symphonies'  or  'harmonies' — or  perhaps  he  might  try 
his  hand  at  a  Set  of  Quadrilles  in  Peacock  Blue? — and 
a  week's  labour  will  set  all  square."  Then  there  is  this 
priceless  revelation  of  his  art  when  questioning  his 
class  in  Paris.  "Do  you  know  what  I  mean  when  I  say 
tone,  value,  light,  shade,  quality,  movement,  construc- 
tion, etc.?"  Chorus,  "Oh,  yes,  Mr  Whistler!"  "I'm 
glad,  for  it's  more  than  I  do  myself."  More  serious  was 
the  verdict  of  Sir  George  Scharf,  keeper  of  the  National 
Gallery,  when  (in  1874)  there  was  a  proposal  to  purchase 
the  portrait  of  Carlyle.  "Well,"  he  said,  icily,  on  looking 
at  the  picture,  "and  has  painting  come  to  this!" 

High  place,  it  would  seem,  did  not  always  conduce 
to  an  appreciation  of  high  art.  Here  is  the  opinion  of 
Sir  Charles  Eastlake,  F.R.I.B.A.,  also  keeper  of  the 

328 


PLATE   XLIX.— J.  M.  WHISTLER 

LILLIE   IN   OUR  ALLEY 
In  the  possession  of  John  J.   Cotvan,  Esq. 


; 


The  Nineteenth  Century 

National  Gallery,  published  in  1883,  on  one  of  Rem-  Manet  and 
branch's  pictures  in  the  Louvre: —  Whistler 

"The  Bath,  a  very  ugly  and  offensive  picture,  in 
which  the  principal  object  is  the  ill-proportioned  figure 
of  a  naked  woman,  distinguished  by  flesh  tones  whose 
colour  suggests  the  need  of  a  bath  rather  than  the  fact 
that  it  has  been  taken.  The  position  of  the  old  servant 
wiping  the  woman's  feet  is  not  very  intelligible,  and  the 
drawing  of  the  bather's  legs  is  distinctly  defective.  The 
light  and  shade  of  the  picture,  though  obviously  untrue 
to  natural  effect,  are  managed  with  the  painter's  usual 
dexterity." 


V 
THE  ROYAL  ACADEMY 

The  last  revolt  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  effected 
in  a  peaceable  and  businesslike,  but  none  the  less 
successful  manner,  by  the  establishment,  in  1886,  of 
the  New  English  Art  Club  as  ameans  of  defence  against 
the  mighty  vis  inertice  of  the  Royal  Academy.  As  an 
example  of  the  disadvantage  under  which  any  artist 
laboured  who  did  not  bow  down  to  the  great  Idol,  I 
venture  to  quote  a  few  sentences  from  the  report  of  the 
Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  appointed  to 
inquire  into  the  administration  of  the  Chantrey  Trust, 
in  1904: — 

"With  five  exceptions,  all  the  works  in  the  collec- 
tion have  been  bought  from  summer  exhibitions  of  the 
Royal  Academy." 

"It  is  admitted  by  those  most  friendly  to  the  present 
system  that  the  Chantrey  collection  regarded  as  a 
national  gallery  of  modern  British  art  is  incomplete, 

329 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


7 he  Royal  and  in  a  large  degree  unrepresentative.  The  works  of 
Academy  many  of  the  most  brilliant  and  capable  artists  who 
worked  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  are 
missing  from  the  gallery,  and  the  endeavour  to  account 
for  these  omissions  has  formed  one  main  branch  of  the 
inquiry." 

"It  has  been  stated  that  while  containing  some  fine 
works  of  art,  it  is  lacking  in  variety  and  interest,  and 
while  failing  to  give  expression  to  much  of  the  finest 
artistic  feeling  of  its  period,  it  includes  not  a  few  works 
of  minor  importance.  Full  consideration  of  the  evidence 
has  led  the  Committee  to  regard  this  view  as  approxi- 
mately correct." 

Up  to  1897,  when  the  collection  was  handed  over 
to  the  nation,  little  short  of  ,£50,000  had  been  spent 
upon  it.  And  with  five  exceptions,  amounting  to  less 
than£"5ooo,the  whole  of  that  money  had  been  expended 
on  such  works  alone  as  were  permitted  by  the  Academy 
to  be  exhibited  on  their  walls. 

Of  the  £5000,  it  may  be  noted,  £"2200  was  well  laid 
out  on  Watts's  Psyche-,  but  with  regard  to  the  very  first 
purchase  made,  in  1877,  for  £"1000, — Hilton's  Christ 
Mocked,  which  had  been  painted  as  an  altar-piece  for 
S.  Peter's,  Eaton  Square,  in  1839,  tne  following  ques- 
tion and  answer  are  full  of  bitter  significance  for  the 
poor  artist  of  the  time: — 

Lord  Ribblesdale. — Was  Mr  Hilton's  picture 
offered  by  the  Vicar  and  Churchwardens? 

The  Secretary  to  the  Royal  Academy. — Yes,  it 
was  offered  by  them — one  of  the  Churchwardens 
was  the  late  Lord  Maghermorne — he  was  then  Sir 
James  M'Garrell  Hogg — he  was  a  great  friend  of 
Sir  Francis  Grant  who  was  the  President,  and  he 
offered  it  to  him  for  the  Chantrey  Collection. 

330 


The  Nineteenth  Century 


When  repeatedly  pressed  by  the  Committee  for  the  The  Royal 
reasons  why  so  few  purchases  were  made  outside  the  Academy 
Academy  exhibitions,  the  President,  Sir  Edward 
Poynter,  repeatedly  pleaded  the  impossibility  of  a 
Council  of  Ten,  all  of  whom  must  see  pictures  before 
they  are  bought,  travelling  about  in  search  of  them.  In 
view  of  this  apparent — but  obviously  unreal — difficulty, 
the  following  questions  were  then  put  by  the  Earl  of 
Lytton : — 

420.  Without  actually  changing  the  terms  of  the 
will,  has  the  question  of  employing  an  agent  for  the 
purpose  of  finding  out  what  pictures  were  available  and 
giving  advice  upon  them  ever  been  suggested? — No. 

421.  That  would  come  within  the  term  of  the  will, 
would  it  not,  the  final  voting  being,  as  it  is  now,  in  the 
hands  of  the  Academy;  it  would  be  open  to  the  Council 
to  appoint  an  agent,  as  was  suggested  just  now,  of  going 
to  Scotland,  and  going  about  the  country  making  sug- 
gestions as  to  pictures  which  in  his  opinion  might  be 
bought? — The  question  has  never  arisen. 

422.  But  that  could  be  done,  could  it  not? — I  sup- 
pose that  could  be  done  under  the  terms  of  the  will,  but 
I  do  not  suppose  that  the  Academy  would  ever  do  it. 

As  a  comment  on  this  let  us  turn  to  the  "Autobio- 
graphy of  W.  P.  Frith  R.A."  (Chapter  xl.):— "  A  portion 
of  the  year  .  .  .  was  spent  in  the  service  of  the  winter 
Exhibition  of  Old  Masters.  My  duties  took  me  into 
strange  places.  .  .  .  One  of  my  first  visits  was  paid  to  a 
huge  mansion  in  the  North.  ...  I  visited  thirty-eight 
different  collections  of  old  masters  and  named  for  selec- 
tion over  three  hundred  pictures.  .  .  .  The  pictures  of 
Reynolds  are  so  much  desired  for  the  winter  Exhibition 
that  neither  trouble  nor  expense  are  spared  in  searching 
for  them;  so  hearing  of  one  described  to  me  asof  unusual 

33i 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


The  Royal  splendour,  I  made  a  journey  into  Wales  with  the  solitary 
Academy  Reynolds  for  its  object." 

Here,  where  it  is  not  a  question  of  a  Trust  for  the 
benefit  of  thepublic  and  for  the  encouragement  of  artists, 
there  appears  to  have  been  no  trouble  or  expense  spared. 
But  the  real  reason  for  the  Academic  selection  leapt 
naively  from  the  mouth  of  the  President  a  little  later,  in 
reply  to  question  545. — "The  best  artists  come  into  the 
Academy  ultimately.  I  do  not  say  that  there  have  been 
no  exceptions,  but  as  a  general  rule  all  the  best  artists 
ultimately  become  Academicians.  It  is  natural,  if  we  want 
the  best  pictures  that  we  should  go  to  the  best  artists." 

On  this  point  the  answer  to  a  question  put  by  Lord 
Lytton  to  one  of  the  forty,  Sir  William  Richmond, 
K.C.B.,  is  of  value,  as  showing  that  the  grievances  of 
"the  outsiders"  were  not  imaginary: — 

767.  I  just  want  to  ask  you  one  more  question. 
When  you  said  that  in  your  opinion  the  walls  of  the 
Academy  have  had  priority  of  claim  in  the  past,  have 
you  any  particular  reason  for  that  statement  ? — Yes.  I 
may  mention  this  to  show  that  I  am  consistent.  Before 
I  was  an  Associate  of  the  Royal  Academy,  I  fought  hard 
for  what  are  called,  in  rather  undignified  language,  the 
outsiders,  and  I  was  anxious  that  men  should  be  elected 
Associates  of  the  Royal  Academy  not  necessarily  be- 
cause they  exhibit  on  the  Royal  Academy  walls,  but 
because  they  are  competent  painters.  That  was  my  fight 
upon  which  I  stood ;  and  I  refused  to  send  a  picture  to 
the  Royal  Academy  on  the  understanding  that  if  I  did 
I  should  probably  be  elected  Associate  that  year,  and 
also  that  my  picture  would  be  bought  by  the  Chantrey 
Fund.  My  answer  to  that  was,  "If  my  picture  is  good 
enough  to  be  purchased  for  the  Chantrey  Bequest  my  pic- 
ture can  be  purchased  from  the  walls  of  the  Grosvenor 

332 


The  Nineteenth  Century 


Gallery  as  well  as  from  the  walls  of  the  Royal  Academy.  7 he  Royal 
That  seems  to  me  to  be  justice."  Academy 

The  "New  English,"  then,  had  some  justification 
for  their  establishment;  and  although  they  did  not  make 
very  much  headway  before  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  they  find  themselves  at  the  opening  of  the 
twentieth  in  a  position  to  determine  to  a  very  consider- 
able extent  what  the  future  of  English  painting  is  to  be, 
just  as  the  Academy  succeeded  in  determining  it  before 
they  came  into  existence. 

For  the  Academy  everything  that  was  vital  in 
English  art  in  the  last  half  century  had  no  existence — 
was  simply  ignored.  For  the  New  English,  it  was  the 
seed  that  flowered,  under  their  gentle  influence,  into 
the  many  varieties  of  blossoms  with  which  our  garden 
is  already  filled.  To  the  Academy  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  change  or  development — their  ears  were  deaf 
to  any  innovation,  their  eyes  were  blind  to  any  fresh 
beauty.  To  others,  every  new  movement  foretold  its 
significance,  and  the  century  closed  with  the  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  art  must  live  and  develop  if  it  is  to  be 
anything  but  a  comfortable  means  of  subsistence  for  a 
self-constituted  authority  of  forty  and  their  friends. 

Let  me  be  allowed  to  conclude  this  chapter,  and  my 
imperfect  efforts  to  indicate  the  energies  of  six  centuries 
of  art  in  so  small  a  space,  with  a  passage  from  a  lecture 
delivered  in  1882  by  Mr  Selwyn  Image,  now  Slade 
Professor  at  Oxford,  which  embodies  the  spirit  in  the 
air  at  that  time,  and  foreshadows  what  was  to  come. 
"  I  do  not  feel  that  we  have  come  here  to  sing  a  requiem 
for  art  this  afternoon,"  he  said.  "As  a  giant  it  will  renew 
its  strength  and  rejoice  to  run  its  course.  I  am  not  a 
prophet,  I  cannot  tell  you  just  what  that  course  is  going 
to  be.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  estimate  what  is  around  us 

333 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


7 he  Royal  with  the  same  security,  with  the  same  value,  that  we 
Academy  estimate  what  has  passed — you  must  be  at  a  certain 
distance  to  take  things  in.  But  in  contemporary  art  we 
can  notice  some  characteristics,  which  are  quite  at  one 
with  what  we  call  the  modern  spirit;  and  extremely 
suggestive — for  they  seem  to  indicate  movement,  and 
therefore  life,  in  this  imaginative  sphere,  just  as  there 
is  movement  and  life  in  the  sphere  of  science  or  of  social 
interests.  For  instance,  in  modern  representative  work 
...  I  think  anyone  comparing  it  as  a  whole  with  the 
work  of  the  old  masters,  will  be  struck  as  against  their 
distinctness,  containedness,  simplicity  and  serenity; 
with  its  complexity,  restlessness,  and  vagueness,  and 
emotion,  and  suggestiveness  in  place  of  delineation,  and 
impressionism  in  place  of  literal  transcription — and 
this  alike  in  execution  and  motive.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  these  qualities  are  better  than  the  qualities  that 
preceded  them,  or  worse  —  but  only  that  they  are 
different,  only  that  they  are  of  the  modern  spirit — only 
that  they  indicate  movement  and  life;  and  so  far  that  is 
hopeful — is  it  not?" 


THE    END 


334 


INDEX 


Academy  of  Painting,  the  French,  231 

the  Royal,  279,  286,  329"333 

Alamanus,  Giovanni   or  Johannes,  60, 

61 
Allegri,  Antonio,  or  Correggio,  58 
Alma-Tadema,  Sir  Lawrence,  307 
Altdorfer,  Albert,  212,  214-216 
Angelico,  Fra,  19 
Animal  Painters,  154,  191-202 
Aretino,  Spinello,  17 
Arnolde,  255 

Backer,  174 

Balen,  Henry  van,  159,  162 
Barret,  287 

'Basaiti,  Marco,  63,  74 
Bassano,  Jacopo  da,  98-99 
Bastiani,  Lazzaro  di,  75-76 
Baudelaire,  311,  312 
Bazzi,  Giovanni  Antonio  (Sodoma),  57 
Bellini,  Gentile,  70,  72-73,  76,  81 
Giovanni,  62,  63,  66,  70-72,  76,  81, 

82,  83,  94 

Jacopo,  66,  69,  70,  75 

Belvedere,  Andrea,  201 

Berchem,  Nicholas,  199-201,  205,  208 

Beruete,  Senor,  quoted,  113,  115,  116, 

118,  177 
Bettes,  John,  254,  255 

Thomas,  255 

Bol,  165 

Boltraffio,  Giovanni  Antonio,  57 

Bonifazio  Veronese  or  Veneziano,  97-98 

Bordes,  Lassalle,  311 

Bosboom,  307 

Botticelli,  Sandro,  26,  28-32,  33 

Botticini,  Francesco,  32 

Boucher,  Francois,  241-243,  245,  246, 

247,  248 
Bouguereau,  306 
Bourdon,  Sebastien,  231-232 
Bouts,  Dirk,  132 
Bracquemond,  325 
Bril,  Paul,  229 

Broederlam,  Melchior,  121,  122,  124 
Brouwer,  Adrian,  157,  158,  173,  183-185 
Brueghel,  Jan,  or  Velvet  Brueghel,  141, 

201 

Pieter  Cor  Peasant),  141 

his  son,  141 

Brun,  Le,  234-241 


Bruyn,  Bartel,  212 
Buonarotti.     See  Michelangelo 
Burnet,  on  Turner,  315 
Byzantine  Art,  59,  124 

Caliari,  Paolo,  102-103 
Campidoglio,  Michel  de,  201 
Canale,  Antonio,  108 
Caro-Delvaille,  quoted,  79,  87,  91,  92 
Carpaccio,  Vittore,  75,  76-78 
Carraci,  the,  106,  182 

Agostino,  106,  107,  108 

Annibale,  106,  107 

Lodovico,  106,  107 

Catalonia,  School  of,  109 

Catena,  Vincenzo,  72,  73 

Cazin,  325 

Champaigne,  Philippe  de,  233-234 

Chantrey  Trust,  the,  329 

Chardin,  245,  247,  296,  297 

Chartered  Society,  the,  286 

Cimabue,  Giovanni,  1-9,  10,  II,  124,  125, 

308 
Claude  (or  Claude  Lorraine,  or  Gelle"e), 

226,  229-231 
Cleef,  J  00s  van,  142 
Clouet,  Francois,  226 

Jehan  or  Jean,  226 

Cole,  Peter,  255 

Vicat,  323 

Conegliano,  Cima  da,  72,  73-74 

Constable,  295,  306,  310,  314,  317 

Cook,  Herbert,  quoted,  80,  83,  87 

Copley,  John  Singleton,  297 

Corot,  306 

Correggio,  58 

Cotes,  287 

Cotman,  John  Sell,  295-296,  306,  314 

Courbet,  306 

Couture,  324 

Cox,  306 

Cozens,  John  Robert,  316 

Cranach,  Lucas,  212,  213-214 

Credi,  Lorenzo  di,  49 

Creswick,  323 

Crivelli,  Carlo,  63,  64 

Crome,  John,  or  Old  Crome,  295,  314 

John  Bernay,  his  son,  295 

Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle,  quoted,  122 
Cunningham,  Allan,  "  Life  of  Hogarth," 

261,  266,  267,  301 


335 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Cuyp,  Albert,  194-196 
Jacob  Gerritz,  194 

Dance,  Nathaniel,  286 

Daubigny,  306 

Daumier,  306 

David,  Jacques  Louis,  248,  249,  306,  309 

Dayes,  Edward,  quoted,  on  Turner,  315 

Decamps,  306 

Degas,  306 

Delacroix,  Eugene,  306,  309-313 

Diana,  Benedetto,  75 

Dilke,  Lady,  quoted,  247 

Dobson,  William,  257 

Dolce,  Carlo,  108 

Ludovico,  on  Titian,  80,  81 

Domenichino,  107-108,  227 

Donatello,  23,  70 

Dore,  306 

Dou,  Gerard,  187,  188,  192 

Doyen,  246 

Duccio  of  Siena,  5,  6,  59,  124,  125 

Diirer,  Albert,  70,   140,   175,   181,   212, 

213,  215-222,  223 
Duret,   Theodore,   quoted,   on    Manet, 

324-325 
Dyck,  Anthony  van,  156,  157,  160-163, 

165,  166,  178,  236,  272 

■ in  England,  256-257 

Dutch  School,  165-210 

Eclectics,  the,  105 

Edwards,  Edward,  quoted,  on  Art  Exhi- 
bitions, 279 

Elsheimer,  Adam,  158,  212 

Emilia,  Schools  of,  57 

English  School,  early  Portrait  Painters 
of,  251-258 

■         in  Eighteenth  Century,  295-298 

spirit  of  revolt  in  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury, 305  et  seq. 

Everdingen,  157,  205 

Exhibitions  of  Painting,  278 

Eyck,  Hubert  van,  121,  125,  126,  127, 

143,  150 
Jan  van,   121,   125,  129-131,   133, 

134,  150 

Fabriano,  Gentile  da,  65,  70 

Fabritius,  Karel,  189 

Fantin-Latour,  325 

Fiori,  Mario  di,  201 

Flaxman,  John,  on  Romney,  298-300 

Flemish  School,  121 -163 

Floris,  Franz,  144 

Foppa,  Vincenzo,  57 

Fragonard,  Jean  Honored  245,  248,  249 

Francesco,  Piero  della,  49 

Franciabigio,  45 

Free  Society  of  Artists,  286 


French  Academy  of  Painting,  231 
French  School  in  Seventeenth  Century, 
225-235 

in  Eighteenth  Century,  235-249 

in  Nineteenth  Century,  305 

Frith,  W.  P.,  quoted,  331 
Fyt,  Jan,  154,  157 

Gaddi,  Taddeo,  18 

Gainsborough,  Thomas,  286, 288-295,297 

Garrard,  Mark,  255 

Gellde,  Claude,  or  Claude,  226,  229-231 

Genre  Painters  of  Dutch  School,  183- 191 

Gericault,  306,  310 

German  Schools,  211-224 

Ghirlandaio,  Domenico,  43,  310 

Giambono,  Michele,  6o,  61 

Gillot,  Claude,  236,  239 

Giorgione,  76,  79,  81,  82,  83,  86,  97 

Giotto  di  Bondone,  10-18,  24,  66,  124, 

308 
Girtin,  315,  316 
Gossaert,  Jan,  or  Mabuse,  136,  138,  139, 

143,  254 
Gosse,  Edmund,  quoted,  322,  323 
Goubeau,  Antoine,  235 
Goya,  Francisco,  11 9- 120 
Goyen,  Jan  van,  186,  199,  202-203,  204 
Grebber,  Peter,  199 
Greco,  El,  no 
Greene,  Thomas,   quoted,   on   Turner, 

3H 
Greenhill,  257 
Gros,  Le,  309,  325 

Greuze,  Jean  Baptiste,  243-245,  249,  258 
Gruenewald,  Matthew,  213 
Guardi,  Francesco,  108 
Guercino,  108 

Hals,  Frans,  165-169,  173, 178, 179, 181, 

183,  184,  192,  248 
Harpignies,  325 
Heem,  de,  201 
Heemskirk,  Martin,  144 
Heist,  Bartholomew  van  der,  165,  170- 

171,  174 
Herle,   Wilhelm  van,  or  Meister  Wil- 

helm,  211 
Herrera,  Francisco  de,  in 
Highmore,  297 
Hilliard,  257 

Hobbema,  Meindert,  208-210 
Hogarth,    William,   257,   258-267,   280, 

297,  298,  307 
Holbein,  Hans,  175,  212,  213,  222-224 

in  England,  254 

Hondecoeter,  Giles,  197,  198 

Gysbert,  198 

Melchior,  154,  198,  199 

Hone,  Nathaniel,  287 


336 


Index 


Honthorst,  Gerard,  169-170 
Hoogh,  Peter  de,  189,  190 
Hudson,  Thomas,  257,  269 
Hunt,  Alfred,  323 

Holman,  134,  306,  320,  321,  322 

Huysum,  James  van,  202 

Jan  van,  201-202 

Justus  van,  202 

Michael  van,  203 

Image,  Mr  Selwyn,  quoted,  333 
Ingres,  306 
Israels,  307 

Jervas,  257 

John  of  Bruges,  125,  126 

Jongkind,  325 

Jordaens,  Jacob,  156,  157,  160,  163 

Kauffmann,  Angelica,  287 
Kneller,  Sir  Godfrey,  234,  257,  279 
Knupler,  Nicolas,  186 
Kugler,  quoted,  13,  61,  67,  75,  77,  95,  97, 

99,  101,  103,  107,  181,  182,  195,  204, 

223 

Lancret,  Nicholas,  239-240,  241 

Landscape,  painters  of,  202-210 

Largilliere,  Nicholas,  234,  235,  241 

Lastman,  Peter,  180 

Laurens,  J.  P.,  325 

Lawrence,  300,  301-303,  306,  313 

Le  Brun,  234,  241 

Le  Gros,  309,  325 

Le  Moine,  Francois,  241 

Le  Sueur,  Eustache,  232-233 

Lefort,  quoted,  on  Velasquez,  115 

Lely,  Sir  Peter,  165,  235,  257 

Leyden,  Lucas  van,  138,  212 

Lingelbach,  203,  208 

Lippi,  Fra  Filippo,  21,  26,  29 

Filippino,  22 

Lochner,  Stephen,  211 
Lockie,  255 

Lombardy,  Schools  of,  57 
Longhi,  Pietro,  108 
Loo,  Carle  van,  241 
Lorenzetti,  Pietro,  17 
Lorraine,  Claude,  226,  229-231 
Lotto,  Lorenzo,  63,  72,  96-97 
Luini,  Bernardino,  57 

Lyne,  255 

Mabuse,  Jan  van,  136,  138,  139,  143, 

254 
Maes,  Nicolas,  180,  188-189 
Manet,  Edouard,  306,  324-327 
Mansueti,  Giovanni,  75 
Mantegna,  Andrea,  67-70,  71, 72, 146, 151 
Maratti,  Carlo,  108 


Maris,  the  Brothers,  307 
Masaccio,  18,  21,  24-26 
Masolino,  26 
Massys,  Jan,  141 

Quentin,  136-138,  141,  212 

Mauve,  307 

Meissonier,  306 

Memling,  Hans,  132,  133-136,  150 

Mengs,  Raphael,  85 

Messina,  Antonello  da,  71,  72,  126,  129 

Metsu,  191 

Michelangelo,  26,  40-46,  66,  95,  100 

Mieris,  Frans  van,  188 

Millais,  320,  321,  322,  323 

Millet,  306 

Moine,  Francois  le,  241 

Monoyer,  Baptiste,  201 

Montagna,  Bartolommeo,  63 

Mor,  Sir  Antonio,  142 

Morland,  George,  296-298 

Henry,  his  father,  296 

Moroni,  75 

Moser,  Michael,  280 

Moyaert,  Nicholas,  199 

Murano,  Antonio  da,  60 

Murillo,  Bartolome  Esteban,  118-119 

Miither,  Dr,  quoted,  32,  177,  178 

Nasmyth,  306 

New  English  Art  Club,  329,  333 

Norwich  School,  295 

Oil  Painting,  introduction  of,  126 

Oliver,  257 

Oort,  Adam  van,  145 

Orcagna,  Andrea,  16 

Orley,  Bernard  van,  140,  143 

Ostade,  Adrian  van,  173,  183,  185,  206 

Isaac  van,  183,  185 

Ou  water,  13 

Pacheco,  iio-iii 
Padua,  School  of,  66 
Palma,  Giovane,  78 

Vecchio,  78,  96,  98 

Parma,  School  of,  58 

Pater,  Jean  Baptiste  Joseph,  240-241 

Peake,  255 

Penny,  287 

Perugian  or  Umbrian  School,  48,  49,  51 

Perugino,  Pietro,  48,  49 

Pinas,  180 

Piombo,  Sebastiano  del,  94-96 

Pisanello,  Vittore,  64,  65 

Pissarro,  325 

Pollaiuolo,  Antonio,  26-28,  30 

Pontormo,  45 

Pot,  Hendrik  Gerritz,  169 

Potter,  Paul,  196 

Pieter,  196 


337 


Six  Centuries  of  Painting 


Poussin,    Gaspard  (Gaspard   Dughet), 
228-229,  231 

Nicholas,  226-228 

Poynter,  Sir  Edward,  331 
Predis,  Ambrogio  di,  36,  57 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood,    134,  320, 

323>  327 
Previtali,  Andrea,  74 
Prudhon,  309 

Quattrocentists,  the  Earlier,  18-26 
the  Later,  26  et  seq 

Raeburn,  300 
Raphael,  26,  45,  47-57 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  on,  85,  270 

Rembrandt  van  Ryn,  165,  166,  1 71-183, 

192 
Reni,  Guido,  108 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  267-278,  286-288, 

289 

quoted,  on  Boucher,  243 

on  Bourdon,  232,  233 

on  Gainsborough,  290-294 

on  Hogarth,  260 

on  Rubens  and  Titian,  93-94 

on  Titian  and  Raphael,  85 

on  Veronese,  105 


revival  of  English  School  due  to,  150 

Refs.  to,  245,  247,  251,  257,  297, 

.301,  33i>  332 
Ribera,  no 
Richardson,  257 
Ridolfi,  quoted,  84 
Rigaud,  Hyacinthe,  234,  241 
Riley,  257 

Robert,  Hubert,  246 
Robusti,  Jacopo.     See  Tintoretto 
Romano,  Giulio,  55 
Romney,  George,  100,  152,  289,  298-300, 

301 
Rossetti,  134,  306,  321,  322 
Rowlandson,  89 
Royal  Academy,  the,  329-333 

foundation  of,  279,  286 

Rubens,  Peter  Paul,  143-157 

and  Van  Dyck,  161-162 

and  Velasquez,  112,  149 

pupils  of,  157-163 

Refs.  to,  89,  93,  114,  117,  158,  160, 

165,  167,  176,  179,  182,  184,  235,  236, 

271 
Rucellai  Madonna,  the,  5 
Ruisdael,  Jacob,  157,  200,  204-206,  208, 

209 
Ruskin  against  the  Philistines,  313-323 
on  Whistler,  327 


SANDRART,  Joachim,  229 
quoted,  180 


Sansovino,  89,  102 

Sarto,  Andrea  del,  41,  45 

Scharf,  Sir  George,  328 

Schlegel,  on  Altdorfer,  215 

Schongauer,  Martin,  134 

Scorel,  Jan,  140 

Sebastiani,  Lazzaro  di.     See  Bastiani 

Segar,  Francis,  255 

William,  255 

Seghers,  Daniel,  201 

Semitecolo,  Nicolo,  59 

Shee,  Sir  Martin  Archer,  313 

Signorelli,  Luca,  49 

Smith,  John,  Catalogue  Raisonni,  quoted, 

193,  199,  244,  265 
Snyders,  Frans,  154,  157,  159-160,  163 
Sodoma,  57 

Spanish  School,  108-120 
Spinello  of  Arezzo,  or  Aretino,  1 7 
Squarcione,   Francesco,  62,   63,  66-67, 

70. 
Steen,  Jan,  186-187 
Stevens,  306 

Streetes,  Guillim,  254,  255 
Strozzi,  Bernard,  113 
Sueur,  Eustache  le,  232-233 
Swanenburg,  Jacob  van,  175,  180 

Tassi,  Agostino,  229 
Teniers,  Abraham,  158 

David,  the  Elder,  157,  158 

the  Younger,   157,   158,   159, 

163,  185 
Terburg,  Gerard,  190- 191 
Thornhill,  Sir  James,  258,  279 
Thulden,  Theodore  van,  156 
Tiepolo,  Giovanni  Battista,  108 
Tintoretto,    II,   99-102,    103,    104,    105, 

113,  114,  117 
Titian,  78-94,   100,    102,    103,  104,  105, 

117,  179 
Turner,  295,  306,  314-320,  323,  327 

Claude's  influence  on,  230,  231 

Tuscan  Schools,  1-58 

UCCELLO,  Paolo,  23-24,  25 

Umbrian  or  Perugian  School,  48,  49,  51 

Vaga,  Piero  del,  45 

Van  Balen,  Henry,  159,  162 

Van  Cleef,  J 00s,  142 

Van  de  Velde,  Adrian,  203,  206,  208 

Willem,  the  Elder,  206 

the  Younger,  206-208 

Van  der  Heist,  Bartholomew,  165,  170- 

iyij  174 

Van  der  Weyden,  Roger,  132-134,  211 
Van  Dyck,  Anthony,  156,  157,  160-163, 

165,  166,  178,  236,  272 
in  England,  256,  257 


338 


Index 


Van  Eyck,  Hubert,  121,  125,  126,  127, 

H3,  15° 
Jan,  121,  125,  127,  131,  133,  134, 

150 
Van    Goyen,    Jan,   186,    199,    202-203, 

204 
Van  Huysum,  James,  202 

Jan,  201-202 

Justus,  202 

Michael,  202 

Van  Leyden,  Lucas,  138,  212 

Van  Loo,  Carle,  241 

Van  Mabuse,  Jan,  136,  138,  139,   143, 

254 
Van  Mieris,  Frans,  188 
Van  Oort,  Adam,  145 
Van  Orley,  Bernard,  140,  143 
Van  Ostade,  Adrian,  173,  183,  185,  206 

Isaac,  183,  185 

Van  Swanenburg,  Jacob,  175,  180 

Van  Thulden,  Theodore,  156 

Vasari,  quoted,  on  Andrea  del  Sarto,  41 

on  Botticelli,  28,  30,  32 

on  Cimabue,  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  9 

on  Fra  Angelico,  20 

on  Fra  Filippo  Lippi,  21,  22,  23 

— '■ —  on  Giotto,  10 

on  introduction    of    oil    painting, 

126,  127,  129 
on  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  34,  37,  39, 

40 

on  Masaccio,  25,  26 

on  Michelangelo,  42,  43,  44,  45 

on  Pollaiuolo,  26,  27,  28 

on  the  Quattrocentists,  18 

on  Raphael,  47 

on  Spinello  of  Aretino,  82,  86 

on  Titian,  82,  86 

Refs.  to,  173,  308 

Vecellio,  Tiziano.     See  Titian 
Velasquez,  89,   109,    no- 118,   120,   163, 

178,  179 
Venetian  Schools,  59-108 
Verhaegt,  Tobias,  145 


Vermeer  of  Delft,  Jan,  189,  191 
Veronese,  Paolo,  103-104,  105 
Verrocchio,  Andrea,  34,  35,  49 
Vertue,  George,  251 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  26,  33-40,  49,  57, 

225 
Vivarini  Family,  the,  59,  60 

Antonio,  62,  63,  65 

Bartolommeo,  62 

Luigi,  or  Alvise,  62 

Vlieger,  Simon  de,  206 

Vollon,  325 

Volterra,  Daniele  da,  18 

Francesco  da,  18 

Vos,  Simon  de,  156 

Waagen,  Dr,  quoted,  95,  122-123,  x43» 

146,  153,  157,224 
Walker,  Robert,  257 
Walpole,  quoted,  251,  252,  267 
Wals,  Gottfried,  229 
Watteau,  Antoine,  235-239,  240,  241 
Watts,  George  Frederick,  306,  322 
Weenix,    Jan    Baptist,    154,    197,    198 

199 

his  son,  154,  198 

Wesel,  Hermann  Wynrich  von,  211 

West,  Benjamin,  253,  256,  287 

Weyden,  Roger  van  der,  132-134,  211 

Whistler,  James  M'Neill,  306,  325,  327 

Wilhelm,  Meister,  21  x 

Wills,  280 

Wils,  Jan,  199 

Wilson,  Richard,  230,  288,  296 

Wint,  Peter  de,  306 

Wouvermans,  Philip,  192-193,  205,  206, 

208 
Wyczewa,  M.  de,  quoted,  117 
Wynants,  Jan,  192,  203-204 

Zampieri,  Domenico,  or  Domenichino, 

107-108 
Zoffany,  297 
Zurbaran,  no 


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